In our last post, we looked at YouTube bots, but now it’s time to delve a little deeper into the practice of buying YouTube likes. Since the dawn of social media, businesses have been able to buy likes, fans, and followers. YouTube is no different. Just Google “buy YouTube views” and see how many results kick back. There are hundreds, if not thousands of services out there that will generate views and subscribers for a fee. And while this is a guaranteed way to improve your vanity metrics, is buying YouTube views really worth the money and the risk to your account?
Purchased Likes Don’t Increase Conversions
YouTube bots will absolutely improve your numbers. And while views, likes, and subscribers can help you achieve better rankings, buying YouTube views will do nothing to increase conversions. You are paying to improve your image to new viewers, but your engagement won’t increase in proportion to those numbers.
Is it better to have 50,000 views but no new customers? Or 50 views that landed you 5 new contracts? The bottom line is this: Fake viewers won’t bring you real money.
Where Are Your Viewers Coming From?
One company that sells YouTube views offers 2,105 views for $15. That sounds like a bargain. And perhaps it is. But where are these viewers coming from? Most companies will tell you that they do not employ bots, which are automated systems designed to game the system and generate fake views. Instead, many of these companies claim to deliver real, human views. But the numbers don’t quite add up. Some companies offer one million YouTube views for a few hundred bucks. That list of contractors must be mighty big to deliver that many eyeballs to their customers. Before sending a payment, think long and hard about what you’re doing. Odds are your views won’t be real. And if they are, who are these companies paying to watch your videos?
Don’t forget that YouTube knows precisely where your views are coming from. Even if you buy YouTube views from a company that delivers human eyes, you can’t control where they are in the world. Google (YouTube’s parent company) knows exactly where your viewers are located. If 99% of all of your views are outside the United States and concentrated mainly in India, the Philippines, or Africa, they’ll know you’re up to something unsavory.
People Are Smarter Than You Think
Let’s say you purchase 50,000 views for a brand new video campaign. Your total views will spike, but guess what? Nobody’s engaged. And that could set off red flags, not just with YouTube, but also among users.
Users have been on YouTube long enough to know that a video with tens of thousands of views and only two comments isn’t quite on the up and up. This may or may not affect the way these users and potential customers feel about you, but most people don’t like being scammed.
Think back to the 2012 Presidential Election. Remember when Republican Mitt Romney’s team got caught buying Twitter followers? The backlash was pretty strong, and while that probably didn’t affect the outcome of the election, it certainly didn’t help Mr. Romney’s PR efforts.
Credibility means something to the average internet user. If someone isn’t familiar with a product or service, they’ll look to reviews and likes to see how others feel about it. When people feel like they’ve been fooled, they aren’t likely to have a favorable opinion about that content or the company that produced it.
You’re On The Hook For Violating YouTube’s Terms of Service
According to YouTube’s terms of service:
You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, “robots,” “spiders,” or “offline readers,” that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser.
Buying YouTube views and/or engaging the services of an automated bot are violations of your user agreement. And just as Google has cracked down on paid links, YouTube is cracking down on paid views, likes, and subscribers. If they catch you, they will take one of two actions. They’ll either remove the purchased views or ban your account from YouTube.
If they eliminate your fake views, every penny you paid goes right down the drain. And if they ban you from the site, you’ve got to start from scratch anyway. And your account is on the hook, period. You can’t claim you didn’t know that you were using YouTube bots. Even if you thought you were paying for human eyes and you got scammed by your vendor, you’re still the one on the hook.
But Everybody’s Buying YouTube Views!
There are lots of people buying YouTube views. Some of your friends and even your competitors may engage in the practice. There can be a great deal of pressure to keep up, especially when it comes to vanity metrics.
But a couple of hundred bucks a month isn’t worth losing your YouTube account. It’s also a waste of money to buy a bunch of views that never land you any business. You’d be better off taking that money and putting it into promoting your videos legitimately through other internet marketing and social media campaigns.
If you do decide to try your hand at buying YouTube views, do so with caution, and open eyes. Understand that your account is on the hook if you get caught, and that your fake views will do nothing for your bottom line.
Have you tried buying YouTube likes? What was your experience like? Would you caution other business owners or do you think the fake views are no big deal? Let us know in the comments!
solid post, buying youtube views can actually harm your video (may be get it banned etc, so the best policy is to promote your videos naturally. If you can’t do it, then may be take the risk 😀