Buying Twitter followers, the legal and ethical implications

twitter-bird-light-bgs

I’m currently running an experiment in which I’m attempting to buy Twitter followers. I’m doing this for two reasons:

  1. to test whether these purported Twitter follower buying services actually work; and
  2. if I am able to successfully buy followers, to test whether these new (read: fake) Twitter followers will impact my real life, in any way.

I received some interesting feedback in the comments of my previous blog post pertaining to this issue. I’d like to elaborate on some of the issues which were highlighted.

Is buying followers a violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service?

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How $15 will make me the most popular marketing student ever

Twitter followers for @AdamJaffrey 2012.08.16 2304

If money can’t buy happiness, what can it buy?

Studies have shown that money can’t buy happiness. But can it buy popularity? Can it buy influence? These are questions I’m attempting to answer in an experiment I’m running.

So … it turns out you can buy Twitter followers. It’s actually pretty easy. Now, there are a lot of “professional” Twitter follower buying services out there, but I’m opting to lash out on the $5 online marketplace, Fiverr. I chose to use Fiverr for a few reasons:

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Delivering value in the Information Age

Customers have changed.

In the past, sales reps would be tasked with “solution selling“—i.e. being adept at discovering customers’ needs and selling them solutions to those problems. In other words, the sales rep would ask the customer questions to diagnose their problem (need diagnosis) and would “sell” them a product that their company produces which provides a solution to the customer’s problem (need fulfilment).

But in recent times, customers require less help from salespeople to find solutions to their problems. This is likely because:

  1. the wealth of information available to customers has multiplied exponentially;
  2. the access to such information has become ubiquitous [in Western nations] (predominantly due to the internet); and
  3. customers have become increasingly dexterous at researching, curating and analysing information.

The result of these developments is that customers are able to self-diagnose problems and research solutions themselves.

Why does this matter?

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