Well we’ve heard of buying a list for call centre sales or mailers, but we didn’t think the concept would spill into social media.

We were turned on to USocial, a service that gets you random Facebook fans and other social followers for a fee, but were surprised when we actually rolled up our sleeves to find that there were many others, in the same business.

The way these services work is that a business or marketer will pay them, sometimes up to $10,000 to buy 250k+ fans on Facebook.  Sounds good right?  Wrong.  The challenge with these services is that the randomness of the followers you will gain, inevitably make these followers useless.  Think about it, you try to garner brand followers because you have the intention to communicate in a targeted fashion, with the hopes of converting them.  If you’ve gained followers from buying them and not attracting them through a previous interaction that they or their friends have had with your brand, you no longer have the opportunity to strategically communicate and your propensity to convert lessens.  In my mind, running banner ads on an industry related Web site would be far more effective, than buying Facebook fans or likes.

Below is a list of only a few of these services, accompanied by some interesting first impressions we got, when visiting them.  By the way, if you think the business of buying fans is not popular and something you don’t need to worry about your marketer or agency doing, we can tell you that the term  ’Buy Facebook Likes’ for example, has seen month over month increases in search volume, meaning that these services are being used at an increasing and alarming rate.

USocial: visiting the site brings you to a coupon that gives you 10% off your next purchase, but wait … that coupon expired April 30th.  It’s now June.

Raj Promotions: they tout that their process is targeted because the business gets to indicate the gender, geography and such of the fans they would much rather have on Facebook.  But again, if you’ve had no interaction with the user where they voluntarily choose to follow you, because of an emotion you triggered in them, your conversation will by no means be targeted.  Regardless of what you do.

MyFBFans: these folks are a little cheaper than the rest, and they have five packages for you to choose from.  What’s concerning though, is that even though all of the packages shout that you can buy fans for xx price, only the most expensive package ‘Guarantees’ fans.  So, does that mean with the other packages, you pay for them, with the hopes of getting the fans they’ve listed, but it may not actually happen?  Or the fans you get in lesser tiers may be made up of a few not so true accounts?

Buy a Follower: the name says it all.  As a Facebook user, I am a little offended to know that someone out there is looking to ‘buy a follower’, who could be me.  Nonetheless, once you get to the site, it totes that is has been “Voted the #1 Online Marketing Solution”, but by who?  We scoured the site for an article or press release that validated this – but, to no avail, we came up empty handed.  Hmm…..

In short, as a business owner, the above highlights how important it is to ask questions of your marketer or agency when they say they guarantee a particular amount of followers. Ask them how?  And ask them what their engagement strategy is? (Engagement quotient with a follower or fan is a far more important statistic, as it leads to customer longevity).  Lastly, although you may be tempted to buy fans or followers, think twice.  The positive effect you are looking for, will never be realized in the business of buying fans.