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If you can’t wait to grow your reach, there are plenty of pay-for-play services online that can deliver big numbers in a pinch—including buying followers and likes or even acquiring already-established accounts. Instagram handles with between 10,000 and 1 million followers can range in price from US$300 to US$200,000. Similar to the domain name market, accounts can be bought and sold at auction or from private dealers who sit on multiple handles spanning a variety of popular content categories, such as fashion and food. But there are drawbacks to this quick fix. “It’s possible to purchase both followers and engagement,” Tang says. When advising brands who are engaging influencers, Tang warns clients to steer clear. “While this is typically expensive and more difficult to check for, there are some key tells here. This can come from erratic engagement rates across posts or erratic spikes in followers over time for a given social-media profile. You can also tell from posts with significant likes from accounts that appear underused.”