The Follow Unfollow Strategy on Instagram
For this #kTip, we discuss the disappointing strategy that occurs on Instagram I call “follow-unfollow”…
Starting out on Instagram can be hard for any business or brand so it’s good to have a few tricks in your arsenal. There is seemingly endless competition and finding your niche can be a long and challenging process. That’s why there are special Instagram and social media strategies to help you get noticed. When it comes to growing an account, the follow unfollow strategy on Instagram is a pretty standard practice. This post will discuss the follow unfollow strategy from top to bottom; how it works, if it works, how to do it, and few other methods you might want to try alongside or instead of this one.
What Is The Follow Unfollow Instagram Strategy
The follow-unfollow strategy is when you follow instagram accounts, wait for them to reciprocate and then unfollow them. It is a popular method used to grow your instagram page.
In a broader sense, the follow unfollow strategy on Instagram is pretty straightforward and easy to understand just from the name. A business will find a bunch of different accounts within its target demographic and follow them in bulk—this method is also something called mass following. The goal of following these accounts is that they will then follow the business back, which grows the business’s numbers. And then, a few days later the business will go through and unfollow those accounts, keeping their follower to following ratio high. Keeping the number of followers higher than the number of accounts followed on Instagram creates a certain kind of appeal for users. It also sets the brand up as looking selective in who they follow. This strategy has worked for businesses and influencers of all sizes. It can be a great way to get a name out there or a foot in a few doors with relatively little effort.
The key to the follow unfollow strategy is doing it in those large numbers. The greatest success with this tactic is to follow hundreds of accounts at one time and seeing the follow backs roll in over that short window of time. Typically, the follow unfollow strategy works best in a week to few day timeframe. This smaller window of time makes it easier to keep track of follower growth and maintain organization. It’s important to keep from following the same account twice when doing the follow unfollow strategy on Instagram. The other advantage of keeping a shorter timeline is that it’s easier to do it over and over again and see growth happen faster. Staying organized and keeping to a schedule are two of the most important things to consider with the follow unfollow strategy. Securing followers and engagement is the ultimate goal of this strategy and doing so quickly.
How to do it
Using the follow unfollow method is easy enough, but there are a few things to be conscious of when trying it out. Following just anyone isn’t exactly the point. The accounts being followed should be ones that have expressed some interest in the business that is being promoted. For example, if the company looking to build a following sells coffee it would make sense for that company to follow a lot of coffee shop, baristas, and coffee artist accounts rather than random accounts that have nothing to do with their niche.
The best place to find those accounts is actually on competitors’ accounts. Let’s use coffee again as an example, finding popular coffee company pages and going through their followers list would be a great place to start. Even though the point of doing follow unfollow is to cast a wide net, it’s important to make sure that it is being cast in the right direction.
The next option to pursue would be to start combing through hashtags. Coming up with a list of hashtags is something that should already be part of any social media business strategy, and this is simply reverse engineering that list. In this way, hashtags aren’t just being used to help potential customers and clients find companies, but helping those companies find prospects as well. Start going through the hashtags most relevant to the company being promoted and find accounts that also post under those topics. Finding that common ground is a good starting point for the follow unfollow strategy on Instagram.
Once that group of followers has been identified and found from there it’s all about scheduling things out. Of course, no social media strategy is perfect. They all come with benefits and drawbacks and the follow unfollow has a longer history than most.
Pros and Cons
There are benefits and downsides to any strategy like this. A few bright sides that come right away for the follow unfollow strategy are the speed with which it works. People are generally more likely to follow back and forget about it, especially if it is a brand that they are interested in. Other than keeping up with friends, Instagram is about finding the next big thing so putting a company’s name out there in bulk can be a good idea and will garner some level of buzz. If the accounts being followed are receptive and interested the likelihood that they will then tell their friends and share this business’s profile increases.
The downsides are probably just as many, and in some ways are actually worse. This first part of the follow unfollow strategy is great, everyone loves getting a new follower. The second part, the act of unfollowing, can be a problem for several reasons. For one, using this method of growing a following is known to come across as insincere and that can really hurt a brand’s reputation. Coming across as being just about growing a following and not basing a company on honest interactions can lead to losing even more followers. And when it comes to Instagram, up and coming brands and companies being insincere creates a lot of negative buzz, especially regarding bot and scam allegations. And unless a tool or outside social media manager is working on this, the follow unfollow method is a more time consuming option.
Does it work?
Now for the big question, does the follow unfollow strategy on Instagram? The answer is it used to, but not anymore. This method is one of the oldest and most reliable on the social internet. But Instagram has made some changes and crackdowns in the last few years that have made it harder to do and actually more or less banned it from the platform. For one, Instagram has put a cap on how many accounts can be followed at once (7,500) and in a day (no more than 200). If that number continues to rise and fall incrementally that can be a red flag for the platform. The Terms and Conditions and Community Guidelines of Instagram actually outline this method as spam now. Having content marked as spam can lead to content and even sometimes accounts being deleted.
The follow unfollow strategy is also not appealing to Instagram users. Being found out as a company that implements follow unfollow can be a mark against them and not only make a follow back less likely but for ratings and word of mouth to fall off.
Other things to try
Rather than engaging in a strategy that has been labeled as spammy and irrelevant here are a few methods that have big pay off potential.
First things first, hone that SEO game. SEO, particularly which hashtags are being used and when posts are going live, will be the greatest help to any company trying to make it on Instagram. The whole point of hashtags is to get specific content in front of the people who want to see it. Keep track of the engagement under each hashtag and adjust and experiment based on what’s found.
There’s the old fashioned way of creating engaging content and interacting with target demographics in order to build organic and genuine digital connections. Sometimes it is as simple as liking, comments, DMing, and engaging with accounts that fit a company’s niche. Though it might take longer and be more challenging, going about building a brand this way will never make people question a company’s validity.
A step up from simple engagement is directly engaging with content creators and setting up collaborations. Growing brands can help each other by working together and sharing followers. If that theoretical coffee company reached out to a growing coffee artists or respected digital barista with a proposition to partner up on some content that’s exposure for both parties in the same industry. Additionally, that strategy can be taken to the next level by leaving the niche. If the coffee being sold goes well with doughnuts reach out to a popular foodie or baker account to create a collaboration that spans two different niches.
If those forms of connection and engagement aren’t working or aren’t in your company’s wheelhouse, there are outside services that can be added to your strategy as well. Bringing on a social media manager or specialist whose sole responsibility is driving engagement is the classic solution.
Conclusion
The follow unfollow strategy on Instagram has had its day and served its purpose—but it’s not the right move anymore. It was a great way to grow a quick following, but in the long run it doesn’t pay off. And more than that using it on Instagram today is actually a threat to the business’s account as it could be flagged and eventually suspended or deleted. There are different ways to grow a social media presence, though none of them are as quick a fix as this one was. It’s time to say goodbye to this easy way in and focus on putting in a little extra leg work and a more sincere approach to growing a following on Instagram. Starting with a small but dedicated following will pay off more than a large and disinterested one. If Instagram is where companies are going to build a following, first they have to grow a community.
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