When building your reputation as a music producer and DJ, social media is a crucial part of your online marketing.
In many ways, your reputation depends on it.
A lot of venues and record labels will look at your social media ‘stats’ before working with you. The more followers and plays you have, the higher your chances for success in the industry.
But getting these numbers isn’t always easy, which leads many artists to the shady ploy of buying them instead of earning them.
Two clicks on Paypal and you can get thousands of fake followers on Instagram, Twitter or Soundcloud. Two more clicks and you’ve got all the plays and likes as well. But is it bad? Let’s have a look at the pro and cons of buying followers.
Why you should buy followers, plays and votes
Even if the followers are just bots and counterfeit, the benefits of having high numbers are enormous. A boost in numbers can transform a bedroom producer into a touring DJ overnight.
We got 5 DJs on the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs list last year, 3 of them for the first time. They were already established artists to begin with but the number of dates they landed after entering the list skyrocketed.
The second reason in favor of paid fame is social proofing. A listener will more likely follow an artist with 1 million fans than an artist with 46… This means fake followers will actually generate real ones for you.
Effortless & cost efficient
It’s obviously a lot easier to buy 10,000 plays on Youtube than to earn those plays organically. Earning them takes time and struggle. A few very talented artists have made it on their own on the strength of their unique content and music style but this is an exception rather than the rule. Most famous DJs have had to invest a lot of $$ to grow their brand.
So is buying fake fame any different to marketing practices? Celebrities and politicians have been well known to buy fake Twitter followers and Facebook fans. If they can achieve success from doing it, why shouldn’t you?
Why you shouldn’t buy followers, plays and votes
The people behind Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud are well aware of the millions of fake accounts that swarm their platforms. Twitter is actually deleting millions of fake accounts every day while Facebook has implemented an Edge Rank formula that kills off all engagement on accounts with fake fans (you could say they killed it even before then to force you to advertise but that’s another story…). Same on Soundcloud, fake plays are easily detected and will forbid your track from landing a place on the ‘top 50’ page.
A lot of people will shame you for buying fake fame but the reality is, it’s actually very difficult to make it to the top without any.
We’re not completely against buying an edge or a shortcut as long as it doesn’t harm your brand. This is why we always warn artists to really know what they’re doing before getting our their credit cards.
If you need a push but don’t know where to start, send us an email and we’ll give you the right advice. Our strength is in organic branding and we actually have a proven track record of effective organic Spotify and Soundcloud promotion services to give you real exposure.