Launching a marketing campaign on Twitter can be highly rewarding for brands and businesses. Given how engaging this platform is, connecting with potential and existing customers is a lot easier here than on any other social media network – but you have to have followers in order for it to work.

Having a solid following on Twitter can give you leverage to propel your promotional and brand awareness campaigns. This is the very reason why we see so many businesses take aggressive measures to beef up their follower count.

High-quality bought followers can help you hack your growth quickly, without exhausting your marketing resources. We’ve seen big brands use bought followers to establish themselves on the platform to kick start their organic growth, making this method one of the oldest hacks in the Twitter playbook.

When purchased from a reputable provider, bought followers won’t unfollow you, or mess up your account with spam. These followers will stay with you for the long run. However, there are companies out there who might not be able to follow through with the same reliability, so you have to choose carefully. Below, I run down a tips to avoid losing bought followers on Twitter.

Go for followers with credibility

When purchasing followers, you’ve got to choose your provider carefully. The one you pick can make or break your success on Twitter. There are hundreds upon hundreds of companies out there who claim to provide the highest quality followers available – but you should know better than to believe every single one of them.

When you buy high quality followers, you’ll wind up with users that look basically like normal Twitter accounts. They have profile pics, names, bios, and they often tweet too.

It’s worth it to buy from the right company, even if it costs a few bucks more. Learn more about specific providers here before signing up for anything. We take the time to actually review the services of these companies, so you can see what you’ll get before you buy. We put them to the test to make sure they follow through with their claims.

Look for a retention guarantee

Retention guarantees (also called replacement guarantees) are in place to ensure that newly bought followers won’t disappear for a specified amount of time. Depending on the provider you’re buying from, retention guarantees can span anywhere from 30 days, to a year, or even a lifetime guarantee in some rare case. These guarantees mean that if your follower count drops below the promised number, they’ll be replaced for free.

Reputable providers, like those we list on our Where to Buy Followers page, will usually offer retention guarantees. This shows that they stand behind the quality of the followers and services they provide.

If you can’t find any information about a provider’s retention guarantee on their website, don’t hesitate to contact support and ask if they have such a policy in place. If they don’t have a retention guarantee – watch out.

Ask hard questions

A reputable provider should go to great lengths to make sure their customers are taken care of – whether it’s with their pre-purchasing questions or any inquiries after purchasing.

Image credit: BuyRealMarketing

Most of the providers we’ve encountered have contact forms on their website, like BuyRealMarketing above, which you can use to send any questions and concerns you might have. Others also have phone lines you can call during certain hours. If you can’t even find a contact page – which is rare – it’s best to step away. You need to find a company who actually cares about their customers.

Based on our experience, most reputable providers respond to our inquiries within 2 business days – some even responding within minutes of us hitting the send button. There are also a few whom we’ve never heard a reply from. Again, this just shows that you can’t really trust all of them.

Consider the response time regarding any inquiries you have when making a decision, and you’ll avoid running into any unnecessary headaches later on.

Take advantage of free trials

Not a lot of providers offer them, but in some cases you’ll be able to find a free trial to test out the services of a particular company. This is usually a good idea, especially if you’re nervous or unsure about how the process works. Some providers run these offers only occasionally.

In other cases, companies offer a very small package for a very small price, letting you try the service before you make a significant purchase. It’s not exactly a free trial, but for $1 it might as well be.

Traverse at your own risk, though. A free trial doesn’t automatically mean they provide high quality followers. This is just a way for you to get a feel of how bought followers work, and if you end up losing them at least it didn’t cost you anything.

Accept the inevitable

Twitter is home to fake bot accounts that get deleted on a regular basis. Twitter even admits that 5% of the accounts on their platform are deemed fake or highly inactive. This means that you’re bound to lose a few followers here and there from time to time.

This does not put you or your credibility at stake. Public accounts don’t have any control over who follows them, and it’s accepted that people may accumulate low-quality bot followers over time. These followers tend to have default pics, no bios, and if there are any tweets at all they are very spammy.

These followers may get deleted or unfollow you after a certain amount of time. In general, their impact is so small that they are hardly noticeable and will not make a substantial dent in your credibility.

You may sometimes lose followers that you buy. Providers will often over-deliver, however, to help negate this effect. That means if you buy 1,000 Twitter followers, you may actually get 1,135, or something like that. The retention guarantee of the provider, mentioned above, usually only covers the specific number of followers you paid for. You’ll only get replacements if your followers dip below that number – the extras won’t be replaced.

Always go for high-quality

Purchasing followers and losing them later on is a waste of money. In order to avoid this, always go for high quality followers from a reputable provider. High-quality followers not only look as authentic as you can imagine, they also have high retention rates (that means they won’t disappear!), and come with comprehensive guarantees that protect you as a user. That includes the retention guarantee, mentioned above, as well as money-back and satisfaction guarantees.

Going for the cheapest option available is not always the best way to go. Like many things in life, you get what you pay for. Cheap followers may sound tempting, but if you end up losing them you just wasted your money. High quality followers, although a bit more expensive upfront, come with value adding services such as comprehensive protections, high retention rates, and customer support.

Ultimately, these are the type of followers that can help you reap all of the marketing benefits Twitter has to offer.

Be picky with your Twitter followers

When shopping around for a provider, be very discerning and choose wisely. There are hundreds of providers out there and they’re all vying for your business, so it’s only natural for them to aggressively promote their services with enticing promotions and prices.

Know what to look for in a provider in order to make the most out of your campaign. After all, you’re doing this to hack your growth on the platform – if you end up with a provider who doesn’t have your best interest in mind, that could set you back tremendously.

There are good and bad providers out there and they all come with varying price tags. Know the difference, and be smart about your campaign so that you can fully maximize the marketing potential of Twitter.