You may have noticed a Twitter page or two with a follower number that does not seem to match the activity on the account. There is definitely a chance that account has bought followers, and there is an even greater chance that account will not be around for very long. There are definitely advantages to having real followers on Twitter. Here are some of the reasons that you should never pay for followers on Twitter.

People already know the game.

Buying Twitter followers may have worked for you five years ago. Everyone knows how to sniff out a fake account these days. People may actually call you out for it, making it impossible for you to convert those bought followers into organic followers. Once the word is out, that account is done.

Buying followers forces you to buy likes and retweets.

You cannot buy a bunch of followers only to leave the rest of your Twitter activity to the organic audience that you may or may not have built up. If you have a large number of followers without the appropriate activity on your tweets, you will easily be found out as a fraud. Your strategy of trying to attract organic followers from followers that you have bought will never work. Buying likes, retweets and followers can quickly become an expensive proposition, one that may not be worth it in the long run.

– There is no reason to have a huge audience if it is not targeted.

There are very few industries in the modern business landscape that require a huge Twitter audience. What is more important is to have a targeted audience that is loyal to your brand. Remember Pareto's rule: 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customers. Do not worry about having a huge, fake customer base. This means nothing if you do not have any organic, targeted customers that will actually convert.

– Twitter may shut down your account for buying followers.

If enough people report your account for being fake, Twitter may take drastic action. You risk having those followers eliminated from your account. You may also have your account suspended indefinitely. Although the terms of service do not explicitly state that you cannot buy followers, it does have a great deal of language about fraud. When you buy followers, you are basically putting yourself at the mercy of whoever checks your account when it is reported.

Aside from the above reasons to stay away from fake followers, there is also the notion of integrity. Why are you trying to trick people into following you in the first place? This is only keeping you from understanding what will truly attract your audience.

Author Bio :Charles Atkin manages content creation for various companies. He is currently writing marketing blogs for Saba SEO . A San Diego SEO Company.