Just like with anything else in life, there’s always a right way and a wrong way of doing things. That’s just the way it is. And unfortunately, if you are thinking of buying and selling social media accounts, it’s too easy to do it the wrong way. Really. It’s too easy to get your wires crossed and end up with less money than you expected. If you want to make sure that you get top dollar for the social media accounts that you buy or sell, pay attention to these 6 tips.

Be Clear About Your Target Niche

If you want to make a lot of money buying and selling social media accounts, regardless of whether they are Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, Pinterest accounts or Instagram accounts, you have to be clear about what niche you’re targeting. The reason why this is important is that if your social media account talks about anything under the sun, then your fan base is probably not all that interested in specific products and services. They’re not really interested in a tightly defined niche product. Instead, they’re probably drawn more to your personality or sense of humor. Well, such accounts don’t sell all that well because it’s anybody’s guess how your fan base would respond to the commercial messages sent by the person who bought your account. Be clear about your target niche. For example, if you want people to pay a lot of money for your account because it’s financial in nature, focus on things like stock trading or forex. All the photos that you share should have something to do with Wall Street or the global financial trading.

Be Clear About How You’ll Be Using Social Media Accounts to Market Your Niche

If you’re thinking of buying an account so you can market through social media, be clear as to how you’ll be using this. You have to understand that these accounts are just tools, and the problem with tools is that the results you get totally depends on your skill level.You can take a violin that’s all scratchy and isn’t very good and put it in the hands of a master violinist like Paganini and people would just be transported and mesmerized because of the artistic genius of that man. He is a legendary violinist. But when you look at the violin that you gave him, it’s cheap and all too forgettable. On the other hand, you can take a very expensive violin, like a Stradivarius, and give it to a beginner and that person can make all sorts of horrible scratching sounds. So it really all turns on your skill level. Focus on how you’ll be using the social media account before you buy it. Have a clear plan. Understand why the plan is supposed to work a certain way. Understand the strategies behind the plan.

Get Your Game Plan Ready Before You Buy an Account

A lot of would-be social media marketers buy accounts before they even have a plan. This is a problem because the longer you keep that account idle, the less responsive your fan base will become. That’s just the way it is. You have to understand that on Facebook, for example, there are tons of content being shared every day. There’s just so much information competing for the same attention that you’re trying to get. And if you take yourself out of the game because you’re just putting together a plan, when you get back in, it may be too little too late.

Be On the Lookout For Fake Fans or Followers

When buying social media accounts, make sure the fans are real. I can’t emphasize this enough. This is especially true if you are publishing social content on Facebook. How can fake fans harm you? Well, you have to understand that Facebook only shows your content to a certain percentage of your fan base in the beginning. If there is no engagement or the engagement is very low, your reach will get stuck at that level. For example, if you have a fan base of 10,000, Facebook will probably only make your post appear on 50 timelines. Now, if enough of those people click the “like” button or otherwise engage with your content by posting a comment, for example, then Facebook will increase your reach.

Maybe instead of 50, it will go to 150. Now, if a lot more people on a percentage basis engage with your content, then Facebook would continue to increase your reach. That’s how Facebook works. Now, this is a problem if the vast majority of your followers are fake. They’re not going to engage. They couldn’t care less because of most of the time, they’re software. They wouldn’t even know. So what will happen? Well, when Facebook does this initial experiment, your post doesn’t get engagement, so you’re stuck at a reach of 50 or less. This happens quite a bit. So do yourself a big favor and look for social media accounts that have real followers or fans.

Send Only Niche Targeted Content

If you bought an account that is niche targeted, send only niche targeted content. Stay on message. This increases the likelihood that people would click the “like” button or “share” or “retweet” because you’re sending them what they signed up for. By and large, they did not sign up for you to post pictures of you frolicking with kittens or surfing in Thailand somewhere. Although you can share that once in a while, by and large, stick to the niche content that they signed up for.

Sell Social Media Accounts with Low Engagement In Your Niche

If you have created many social media accounts, chances are, you would see the 80/20 rule in effect. The 80/20 rule states that only 20% of the things you do account for 80% of your results. The same applies to social media accounts. 80% of your results can be traced to maybe 20% of those accounts. So this begs the question, what do you do with the rest of the accounts? Very simple. Sell them.Now, don’t expect people to pay you a tremendous amount of money, but as long as the fans are real, then they have a head start. Maybe they can figure out what you were doing wrong, maybe they can send better content. Whatever the case may be, they get a head start. They’re starting with a competitive advantage instead of starting from scratch. You have done the heavy lifting of getting a fan base going for them.

Keep the tips above in mind when thinking of buying or selling social media accounts. You have to do it right because it’s too easy to waste money buying and selling accounts. If you’re a seller, make sure you follow these tips so you can get the top pricing for what you’re selling. If you are a buyer, follow these tips to make sure that you don’t waste your money.