Buying Followers for Local Website?

Hi all, would it be bad for SEO or quickly be shut down by Twitter/Facebook if you were to buy Facebook/Twitter followers for a Local business? I'm just looking to get the initial social proof for the company. Would Google penalize the site if the users were not from the local area? Are they able to recognize that? Any help/opinions are appreciated.

nacco,

I'm not sure you would be penalized directly however Google looks for authoritative accounbts in order to attribute social signals to content. So if a like or a plus one comes from an account that was set up recently, has no followers of its own, and appears to be a shell account, Google may not attribute that much wieght to the account in terms of social signals. Conversely, if you get interaction from a long established account that has lots of followers and a history of good interaction, that will help your site. There is also evidence that social networks are cracking down on the practice of buying followers. I would say don't waste your money and focus on doing it the right way.



Here is an article on CNN from last year talking about how FB is cracking down on buying fake likes,

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/27/tech/social-media/facebook-fake-likes

Hope that helps,

Shawn

Hey, thanks for your response. My main reason for wanting followers is to have some social proof right from the start. Do you have any other ways to recommend doing this?

It will be better if they are real people from the area. Everything else is just lazy fake marketing.