Buy a few thousand followers from a click farm and see if the responses start to change. That’s honestly the best way to establish yourself if you’re serious; everyone is defrauding everyone and nobody cares because they’re all getting rich.
I guess that's the downside to trying to make money from a hobby. Either it stays a hobby that you don't make money from, or it becomes a second job and stops being a hobby.
Ignore the emails.
For those that look at that, they’ll be more turned off than a smaller following count but good engagement ratio.
Keeping the network healthy is one of the more interesting topics. Simulating a real network is the biggest thing. It's very easy to embed yourself, unless it is that closed of a network.
[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/people-are-turning-t...
So I think the circle is you buy followers to look popular, and fake real people into following you. Then you delete the fake followers and then have real followers to sell.