You can get 12,000 followers for your Twitter account for the low, low price of $5.

Plenty of websites offer such services:

No.

Just no.

You're better than that.

Don't buy thousands of fake accounts for cheap.

There's a much smarter way to buy legitimate Twitter followers and increase your organic reach.

Having real Twitter followers definitely will offer you more long-term benefits than any "cheap" deals you'll find.

What you have to do is buy real followers.

Adding legit Twitter followers will increase engagement and impressions because actual people will be retweeting you, replying to your posts, or otherwise interacting with your content.

Increasing your following does come at a cost, but it may surprise you to learn that, when done right, it really isn't all that expensive.

Here's your ultimate guide to running a Twitter Followers Campaign.

How to reach your future Twitter followers

Twitter makes it super easy to target users by location. For example, you could target people in specific cities, or you could target a metro area, such as Boston, MA–Manchester NH:

Your Followers Campaigns can target either by interests and followers, or by using Tailored Audiences.

Using interests and followers, you can target people who are similar to other Twitter accounts that you've specified. It's simple to find those Twitter IDs by searching for their name. You then can add interest targeting (e.g., users who are interested in advertising or business).

Remember, you aren't buying anyone's followers here. You're targeting ads at people who are like your specified user or users.

Tailored Audiences lets you include or exclude. Here, you can target people who have recently visited your website, or by using curated lists.

If there are certain influential people you want to follow you, people who follow another account in your industry, or emails your company has collected (from people who have signed up for your whitepapers, webinars, or other content), all you have to do is create a list of Twitter usernames or emails and upload it.

Because these people are in your industry and/or within your company's ecosystem (or have at least visited your site in the past), it's quite possible they know who you are. That makes them great prospects for your Followers Campaign. Take full advantage of the ridiculously powerful ability to target specific users with Twitter Ads.

The big secret to actually buying Twitter followers

Now you need to create your promoted tweet.

Twitter suggests this as a best practice: "Let the user know why they should follow you."

No. Twitter is wrong.

In my experience, people don't respond well to these types of messages.

People don't care why you think you're so great, or that you think you provide the best deals.

I tried, believe me. I promised users that if they followed me, they'd become a guru of AdWords.

Didn't work. At all.

You need to reject Twitter's advice.

So, what's the big secret? What actually does well? What inspires people to become a follower?

Be awesome and don't tell anyone to follow you.

The best way to make your Followers Campaign work is to share a unicorn piece of content — something that performed really well for you and was truly outstanding. Take that great piece of content, maybe an infographic or an amazing visual, and share it.

If what you tweet is truly is amazing, people will decide to follow you because you're cool.

Bonus tip: Consider adding emojis to your promoted tweet. Yes, emojis really do increase engagement.

What it costs to buy real Twitter followers

Now the big question: How much do you pay? How much does a Followers Campaign cost?

Twitter charges on a pay-per-follow basis for Followers Campaigns. That means you only pay when someone follows you.

You don't pay if someone clicks on your link and visits your website, goes to your profile page, retweets you, or engages with your promoted tweet in any other way.

Even though it isn't the intent, the clicks driven from these other forms of engagement also dramatically contribute to the value of your Followers Campaign.

Basically, a Followers Campaign is an auction. You identify the most you're willing to pay for every new follower you gain.

So, let's say I'm willing to pay $2 per follower. What happens is the estimated reach falls to 17,000 of the 181,000 in my targeted audience.

The more you're willing to pay, the more impression share you can grab. The less you're willing to pay, the fewer of your target audience you will reach.

The results

Even though you've told Twitter what you're willing to pay, it usually costs substantially less.

In the above example from earlier this year, I added 26 followers. The cost: $3.49, or $0.13 per follower.

I actually told Twitter I was willing to bid $0.50 per new follower. So why wasn't I charged that amount?

It turns out Twitter will give you a discount if people are more likely to follow you.

My ad produced a 0.22 percent follow rate. Seems low, right? Actually, that's pretty decent because the expected follow rate is 0.1 percent.

Translated to Twitter, this means having a higher follow rate actually gives you a discount on each click, whereas people who have worse follow rates from Follower Campaigns will pay far more.

But I got more than 26 followers for my $3.

My Followers Campaign generated 11,900 ad impressions. Also, 20 people clicked on my ad and visited my site.

All free. Again, you're only paying for followers, not any other engagements.

Not a bad deal.

Where your Followers Ads appear

Most of the time (roughly 70 percent), your ad will appear on the right near the "Who to Follow" suggestions box.

A smaller percentage of the time (roughly 30 percent), your ad will appear natively in users' timelines.

Buying real Twitter followers: 3 key takeaways

1. Don't buy fake Twitter followers. Having huge follower numbers and low post engagement numbers looks ridiculous. Instead, consider buying real followers to increase your reach and engagement. The value of Twitter Followers Campaigns isn't limited to the new followers you're buying. You're only paying for followers, which means you can also drive a ton of free ad impressions, clicks, and retweets.

2. Real followers have real value. Amassing a large number of followers means Twitter will view you as an influencer. Once you reach that level, you can end up "stealing" a search result (e.g., a conference hashtag) because Twitter curates popular tweets and "pins" them at the top, which means you can potentially get millions of views from anyone searching for that hashtag.

3. Ignore Twitter's "best practice" advice. Don't give people a reason to follow. Try to create a high-engagement tweet. Give them a unicorn — share the rarest, greatest-performing tweet you've ever done as your Followers Campaign. This will drive down costs while maximizing the value of those free clicks.