We’re all familiar with the classic expression ‘fake it until you make it’ and at some point in your life if you’re totally honest with yourself, you could probably find a time when that applied and when you over-embellished a fact about yourself or your abilities in order to either impress somebody, go for an opportunity you otherwise couldn’t or just to make yourself feel better – it’s okay, everybody has done it at some point, you’re not alone.
However, what happens when you apply that statement to your online profile and start down the route of buying an online presence?
Nothing good, is the short answer! In fact, this is one of the most harmful actions you could take against your own career. We strongly advise against it.
There are several reasons for this, we’ll go through some of the most vital below.
1. Your fans/followers are not going to believe it.
Companies that promise followers and likes often deliver them by the truckload overnight or over a weekly period. If your REAL followers see your numbers suddenly going from the hundreds to the thousands very quickly then they’re going to get very suspicious. Even the top charting artists don’t organically jump that quickly – so you’re going to set off alarm bells. Worse still, if your real fans and followers think you’re trying to fake it all, you take the risk of them walking away, whilst you’re left with empty fake accounts and less interaction than you started with.
2. Your music industry contacts and friends will lose respect for you.
In the early days of social media, when this sort of thing happened music industry folk were not completely wise to it and some bands and artists could get away with online ‘blagging’. Nowadays there’s no chance of that, there’s a new band almost every week attempting to fake their numbers and make themselves look desirable online and promoters, radio presenters, labels and venues are all now extremely wise to it and cautious of it. If you become one of the bands trying to fake your online presence then you’re basically waving around a red flag that says ‘don’t work with me’ and anything you send them will likely end up in their trash bin.
3. You’ll lose out on future opportunities.
Besides hurting your current reach, you might also jeopardise any potential future opportunities that could come your way. If an A & R rep comes to your gig and really likes you, goes home to look you up online and then sees that all your numbers are ridiculously high with little to no interaction, they’re going to lose interest unless you’re extremely lucky. Festivals and events that might previously have been happy to host you will avoid you, as they won’t want to get a reputation either for booking bands with fake numbers – you will also make them think that you’ve got no draw at all.
4. You’ll find it nearly impossible to undo.
Trying to undo the damage of fake social media interaction is EXTREMELY hard. If you do ever manage to rectify the damage it causes, it won’t be for months, possibly even years and you’d be better off scrapping your page/profile and starting anew – it might sound dramatic but it’s true. You may think it’s hard to start over and get people to follow and like a new page from scratch, but it’s going to be ten times harder trying to convince new people to follow a page that they can clearly see is faking its numbers.
5. You’ll fall flat on your face on gig night.
So, let’s just imagine for a moment that a promoter DOESN’T notice you’ve got fake numbers everywhere and they decide to book you, based on your impressively high social media presence, expecting that their night is going to end up crammed – perhaps they even prepare staff to work later, get extra alcohol in etc. Gig night arrives, you turn up to play and your legions of thousands and thousands of fans are nowhere to be seen. The promoter starts scratching their head and you then take the stage and end up performing to the opening band’s families, the sound tech, the promoter and possibly your Mum, Dad or partner and nobody else. The promoter will either get extremely angry with you and accuse you of duping them, or they’ll be the picture of politeness and just never book you again – the result is the same either way, you lose out on a future gig with them and possibly the contact altogether.
If you’re STILL not convinced, we highly suggest you take a read of the guide below from ‘Get Proof USA. They’ve got a few reasons of their own that are well worth the read and your time.
Don’t buy an online presence! Build one!
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