Read This BEFORE Buying Followers or Verification!

Hey friends,

Welcome back to Creator Etiquette™.

Today we’re getting into something that keeps coming up behind the scenes, even if people don’t always say it out loud: buying followers and buying verification. Get ready because I have some spicy takes.

This newsletter lives alongside the YouTube channel and the podcast for those who prefer reading over watching, and for the weeks when a video can't capture everything I want to say. If you’d rather listen in, make sure to follow along on YouTube and Spotify!

Costs are rising. Clients are paying slower. Hiring feels riskier than ever.

And every day brings another hit.

The Survival Hub gives you practical, in-the-trenches support to respond:

Built for leaders navigating uncertainty.

Staying standing isn’t about doing more. It’s about knowing what to do next.

Explore BELAY’s Survival Hub.

For context, I recently went down a bit of a rabbit hole on Reddit. I’ve never really been a Reddit girl because, if I’m being honest, it’s always felt like a slightly scary place for creators. But I started digging into threads around content creation, UGC, social media management, and influencer marketing to understand what people are actually asking right now.

One question kept popping up over and over again: “Where can I buy followers?”

So let’s talk about it.

From a psychology perspective, it actually makes perfect sense. People buy followers because they want to be perceived a certain way. They want to feel worthy. Worthy of brand deals, worthy of speaking opportunities, worthy of being invited to events, worthy of being taken seriously. If follower count feels like the barrier to entry, the shortcut starts to feel justified.

But I want to pause you right there and ask a different question. What is actually holding you back from getting out of your comfort zone and building that audience through real content and storytelling?

Everyone starts from zero. I’ve started more accounts than I can count across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, podcast pages, business pages, even a dog account. And right now, even Hosts of Influence is still in that early stage on social. I know what it feels like to look at an account and think, “I don’t have many followers here, how do I even begin?”

The answer is you begin anyway. And you remember that every account attracts a different audience. The audience I build on Hosts of Influence is not the same as the one on my personal page, and that is the point. You are not just building numbers. You are building the right room.

Now here’s where my take might surprise you a little bit. I don’t necessarily think buying followers automatically makes you a bad creator. I personally would never do it, and I never have, but I understand why people do. What I do think is a problem is buying followers without a plan.

If you buy your first thousand followers and then stop, or you are not creating consistently, or you are not thinking about how you are going to serve that audience or turn it into something sustainable, you are just left with an account full of dormant numbers. At that point, who are you building for? Who are you selling to? How are you actually building a business?

And then there is the part that people do not talk about enough. The second a brand asks for your analytics, your audience demographics, your engagement, everything becomes very clear. If your followers are not aligned with the campaign, you will not be considered. On top of that, platforms are constantly removing bot accounts. So even the shortcut is not permanent. What’s more important than inflated numbers is finding the right people. Quality > Quantity

If there is any scenario where it might make sense, it is as a temporary unlock. Maybe you need access to a feature like going live, or you are trying to test something specific for your business. In that case, you have to ask yourself if the expense is actually solving a real problem or just avoiding one. Will buying followers or verification now help your business in the long run? Or would it be better to use that money towards creating things that will actually get the right people to find your account organically?

The same conversation applies to buying verification. Yes, you can pay for a blue check now on multiple platforms. And again, I am not here to judge you if you do. But I will never pay for one. Not because I do not understand the appeal, but because I believe in earned media. I believe in becoming notable for your work, your ideas, and your perspective, and having that recognition compound over time.

For me, verification came years into creating. I started posting in 2016, and my first blue check did not come until 2021. From there, everything snowballed across platforms. That happened because I was consistently putting out content that journalists could reference, that positioned me as someone with a point of view worth quoting.

That is the shift I want you to make. Every piece of content should be so deliberate that someone could pull from it and say, this person is an expert in this space.

At the end of the day, this is not really about followers or verification. It is about what you are actually trying to build. If you are building for vanity, shortcuts will always be tempting. If you are building a business, shortcuts do not really help you. They just delay the moment where you have to show up for real.

And one last thing I will leave you with. The best engagement you will ever get is not from inflated numbers. It is from posting something your audience actually loves, or even something they disagree with. You can buy attention, but you cannot buy relevance.

So I want you to sit with this question this week. Are you trying to look like a creator, or are you actually building something that lasts? This week, look through your socials and ask yourself: Would I follow this account? Is it clear what I do? Is there a reason to trust me yet? If the answer is no… good! Now you know where to start.

We are going to go deeper on press, verification, and how to actually become notable very soon. That is going to be one of the most valuable conversations we have here.

No question this week, but I want yours. What are your opinions on buying followers or verification to boost your platform? Reply to this email or join the conversation in our Reddit community. I am reading every single one.

Next issue, we are getting into another hot topic: buying followers and verification. Tune in next week for some spicy takes.

Welcome to Creator Etiquette™. I am so happy you are here.

Xo, Gigi Robinson

Founder, Hosts of Influence® | Creator, Educator, Speaker, Author, Dog Mom

You are receiving this because you signed up for Creator Etiquette™. Unsubscribe anytime, no hard feelings.