Follow/ unfollow. If you find any YouTube videos about Instagram growth from 2017, you will learn that the fastest, most effective way to grow on Instagram is follow-unfollow.

What is follow unfollow? It’s where you follow other users in hopes that they’ll follow you back.  Some people only unfollow the users who don’t follow them back, whereas some people unfollow everyone, even the people who followed them back. This used to be a good way to gain a large following quickly. In 2020 though, it’s a good way to kill your account quickly.

1. Action-blocks

This was a great method until Instagram decided it hated robots and would crackdown on anyone who was either using a robot or looking like a robot. It’s good to limit your actions on Instagram (following, unfollowing, liking, commenting, DMing, etc..)

2. Shadowban

Shadowbans are usually the result of acting like a spammer, whether in the DM’s, doing too many actions at once, or using irrelevant or banned hashtags. You can use this tool to check on whether or not your hashtags are currently banned.

The thing about a shadowban is that you don’t really know if it’s happening or not. But if you’ve been using follow/unfollow, tagging irrelevant people, DMing a million people, or using irrelevant hashtags to somehow “hack” the system and you notice a sharp decrease in reach and engagement, you may just be shadowbanned.

It should be noted that dropping off the face of the earth and not posting for a long time can also make your reach and engagement sharply drop.

3. Getting Your Account Restricted

Sometimes, if Instagram suspects your account of using too much automation or too many third-party apps, even if you did follow/ unfollow manually. There have been instances especially in recent times where accounts have not only been action-blocked but banned entirely, for good. If this happens to your account, it’ll be lots of hard work and content creation flushed down the toilet.

Unlike a shadowban, where your engagement and reach mysteriously drop, when Instagram bans your account, it is usually permanent. They do, however, have a way to open a dispute so that you can try to get the account back.

4. Non-Engaged Followers

Many followers who respond to your follow request and follow you back are 60% only in this for their own growth and may unfollow you later to make their follower to following ratio look good. If your followers are following your for any other reason than your content, they will not be engaged and not help your reach overall.

Back when Follow/ unfollow worked, you could go to a post in your niche and follow all of the people who liked it. They would likely be interested in your content as well, so having unengaged followers wasn’t much of a concern. But still, if the previous three reasons don’t make you stop follow/ unfollow, I don’t know what will.

5. Following More Than 1,000 Accounts is Hard

If you’re a courteous person who likes to keep following the people who follow you back (The principle of reciprocity), you are going to have a really hard time when you reach 1,000 followers.

It’s silly to think that you could be following 10,000 people in order to get 10,000 followers. Plus, Instagram now shows people which accounts they interact with the least and give then the option to unfollow. When you follow 1,000 accounts, you’re going to see very few, if any of them in your feed and will be able to see very few.

What About Gain Posts?

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me participate in some gain posts. Now you may be asking yourself: “I thought she just said NOT to use follow/ unfollow, why does she use gain posts?”

I do things with my own account sometimes because I’m curious and will not risk my clients’ accounts experimenting with different growth methods.

If you’ve never heard of Gain Posts, it’s basically consensual follow for follow.  You follow the accounts listed in the post, then look at the comments. If you post a f4f (follow for follow) in the comments, you can quickly gain 50+ followers who expect a follow back from you.

Is it a fast, effective way to grow? Yes. Are people there for their own selfish purposes? Yes. Will they engage with your account in a meaningful way? Probably not. Does this carry the risks mentioned above? I’ve not found gain posts to be risky, just follow back two to ten people per hour and you should avoid an action block. However, if you are looking for engaged followers, not just numbers who don’t care about you, this is not the way to go.

We’ll talk more about ways to grow that work and garner you engaged, interested followers this month. If you’d like help with your Instagram or would like to know about these growth strategies now, feel free to contact me here for a free strategy session.