Is it wrong to buy LinkedIn likes?

Warning! This article will blow your mind, as it’s about much more than buying LinkedIn likes.
Those are just the tip of the ice-berg.

So your question was: “Is it wrong to buy LinkedIn likes?” right?

Let’s be honest: Nobody wants LinkedIn likes.

Not even you.

What you really want is something else. For example, you want new clients for your business, a new job, or a promotion. LinkedIn likes are only a tool to achieve your goal. So the correct question is:

Is it wrong to invest in achieving your goal?

Of course nobody would say that investing in your goal is bad, but many would include that you don’t have to buy LinkedIn likes to achieve your goal. You can get likes organically, if you invest enough time and effort into growing your follower base. Guess what, they are perfectly right! However they forget about something really important:

Going organically means that instead of investing money, you invest time. And here is the tricky part: You can have infinite money – just look at Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk for example – but you certainly can’t have infinite time. Sorry for being ruthlessly honest, but don’t forget:

You are not getting any younger…

How much time do you think it takes to grow your follower base and reach that level of interaction on LinkedIn that you’re aiming for? You don’t want to stay in same situation, waiting for new clients, job or a promotion, without substantial progress towards your goal. Would reaching that goal make your life better, fuller and happier? Then…

…before going for the organic – and slow – approach, ask yourself:

How fast do you want to achieve your goal and have positive changes in your life?

Of course, you might say that OK, you want it fast, but you don’t want to sell your soul to the devil. Let me disappoint you quickly: You already did that. LinkedIn literally makes money from you:

  1. They sell advertisements that they display for you
  2. Your profile and your posted content raise the value of their platform
  3. They sell their premium services for sales people and recruiters who want to reach you
  4. You attract even more people to their platform
  5. You buy their premium services

Even if you are using LinkedIn’s platform for free and you don’t click on any advertisement, every minute you spend there chasing your organic goals, you generate more money…

Money for them… not for you.

Guess what these big companies such as LinkedIn – original valuation in 2016: $26.2 billion – do with their money that they made from you? They buy likes. But before we go there, let’s talk about “buying likes“. What is the core difference between buying social interactions, such as likes, followers, shares etc. and their organic versions?

The paid social interactions are incentivized. Meaning: You only got them because you paid for them. Are incentivized interactions worse than organic interactions? According to these big companies, they are just as good as the organic ones:


There one very important difference between incentivized and organic interactions. Since you got the incentivized interactions in exchange for money, they don’t represent real interest. That means people don’t necessarily care about your post, just because they likes it. Then what is the benefit of having them?

Big companies by giving away freebies, oranizing free events, giving away different incentives, and buying likes, they are doing the exact same thing: They market themselves to attract more people to grow their audience. Incentivized likes themselves don’t represent interest, but they help you to get your content shared to a bigger audience, in result you will attract more organic engagement and organic growth. Incentivized interactions never meant to replace, but to speed up the organic growth.

One more example of incentivized interactions: Back in the days it was mostly famous athletes or musicians, but nowadays basically every influencer – no matter how big or small – are promoting some service or product. They don’t promote those products because they are genuinely love them and they want to introduce them to their followers. Not even close. They promote and recommend those products in exchange for money or free samples.

People fall for these promotions every day. They want to wear, drink, or use the same products as their idols. All of that is sponsored by big companies who paid the influencers for the incentivized recommendations to drive real organic traffic to their bPeople fall for these promotions every day. They want to wear, drink, or use the same products as their idols. All of that is sponsored by big companies who paid the influencers for the incentivized recommendations to drive real organic traffic to their business. (Quora: Buy LinkedIn likes and Buy LinkedIn connections)

Are the influencers “fake” or “incentivized” interactions? Absolutely. They did not generate any direct income, they are just business expense, just as buying likes would be. But do they help to promote the given product and generate real organic traffic and drive sales? Absolutely!

Now, answer the initial question yourself:

Is it wrong to buy LinkedIn likes?