Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

As much as we may wish our Instagram follower growth showed an upward trend, it’s probably more like a rocky mountain landscape with peaks and valleys.

Fluctuations in your follower count are totally normal and often a result of the ‘follow/unfollow’ game that many accounts foolishly choose to play.

Here’s how it works: an individual follows you, waits until you follow back, then unfollows you. The unfollow can happen seconds, days, and sometimes weeks later.

While this strategy may work for some businesses to grow their audience, those followers probably won’t turn into customers.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Image Source: Buffer

But don’t waste time feeling offended – a lot of these accounts that unfollow are actually bots (up to 24 million, actually!). In other words, they’re fake accounts created in online black markets to interact with other users. They’re often used by businesses to increase their following, and Instagram is actively implementing methods to weed out these annoying accounts.

If you use Instagram to increase brand awareness, build a connection with your audience, get insights into their buying behavior, and ultimately generate leads, here’s how to deal with those annoying accounts that are more interested in playing the ‘follow/unfollow’ game.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

1. Use an app to monitor your followers

Get a better understanding of your audience by using an app like Followers. The free version allows you to see your new followers, who has unfollowed you, which accounts you’re not following back, and which aren’t following you back.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Image Source: iTunes

By digging into the types of accounts that are following and unfollowing you, you’ll probably recognize some patterns.

Here are a few of the different types of accounts you might find:

  • Follow for follow (‘F4F’) accounts. These are usually pretty easy to spot. Accounts like this are distinguished by spammy type handles that include words like ‘free’, ‘F4F’ and ‘followers’.
  • Competitors. If the account has a similar product or service offering to you, they may be competitors. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if they’re not unfollowing you!
  • Potential customers. You should be able to recognize when someone fits your ideal persona characteristics by browsing through their feed and profile.

2. Rethink your hashtag game

If you recognize that your followers are a mix of ‘F4F’ accounts, competitors, or people that you do not feel are a great fit for your business, it’s time to rethink your hashtag strategy. Your hashtags are what extend your reach beyond your followers and attract new eyes to your posts, so it’s important that they’re strategically researched and selected.

Avoid generic hashtags that are tagged on millions of photos. When people are using those hashtags every second, your post will instantly get lost in the weeds as new ones are published.

Here are some of the most overused hashtags to avoid using:

  • #photography: 100,000,000+
  • #business: 20,000,000+
  • #inspiration: 73,000,000+
  • #fitness: 19,000,000+
  • #nofilter: 188,000,000+

Instead, engage with research on hashtag variations that still align with your business and post, but aren’t overused or targeted by bots. Focalmark is an app that allows you to explore new hashtags and copy them straight into Instagram. You can use up to 30 hashtags on each post, so use them wisely!

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Image Source: iTunes

If you’re stuck on which types of hashtags to use, try combining your location and product. For example, #SeattleKids for a children’s museum in Seattle, or #SeattleCoffee for a coffee shop in the same area.

If you have a passionate customer base already, you can also consider creating a unique hashtag for your brand.

3. Reassess your content strategy

If you’re attracting (and losing) ideal customers on Instagram, or if you’re only attracting ‘F4F’ bots, it’s time to rethink the type of content you’re sharing and your overall Instagram strategy.

If people don’t see value in your content, they’ll unfollow you. Before you publish each post, ask yourself what value your followers will receive. Make sure that everything you post isn’t blatantly promotional.

If you’re stuck on what to share on Instagram, here are some ideas:

  • Share your customer’s posts (but be sure to credit the original publisher!)
  • Share a quirky or thought-provoking quote that will resonate with your target audience
  • Run a giveaway contest and post about the rules or prizes

If you’re sharing product-specific content, make sure it’s clear how investing in the product will make the customer’s life easier or save them money.

If you want to drive direct sales with Instagram, this post has a ton of tips on how to make Instagram shopping work for your brand – see if you can improve the methods you’re using to match the successful ones from those companies.

4. Replan your posting schedule

If your posts are all over the place and don’t follow a theme, your followers may feel they’ve been misled. They expected a certain type of content when they followed you in the first place. Post consistently to avoid confusing them.

Creating an Instagram schedule and social media strategy can really help you map out your posts and ensure there’s a common thread amongst each one.

After all, if you’ve ever subscribed to an email newsletter and then felt totally confused when their first email shows up a year later and you have no idea who the sender is, then you can understand the issue with posting randomly or inconsistently!

Instagram is very popular and new posts are published so frequently that if you don’t pop in your follower’s news feeds often, your followers might think you’ve disappeared. Frequency will vary from business to business so have a good hard think about how often your business should post and stick to it.

Wrapping up

Tip: Too busy to manage your Instagram campaign, hire an expert or a freelancer on Fiverr.

Numbers are numbers, and ultimately they shouldn’t be an indication of how successful your business is. Try not to take it personally if you experience a lot of unfollows. Instagram accounts of all sizes have to deal with fluctuations in follower count.

Just focus on creating quality content that turns your followers into leads and customers by posting consistently, using the right hashtags, and monitoring your followers.

Guest Author: Andrea Moxham is a contributing writer at Content Harmony. She is a creatively driven marketing and communications specialist with a proven track record in developing lead generation content. Her entrepreneurial spirit and experience with inbound marketing, social media, communications and design all help her connect clients with new customers.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

The reason why your following keeps changing on Instagram is because someone’s followers may have blocked you or deactivated their account.

It may appear that your following has changed for no apparent reason. Still, keep in mind that Instagram is not only a social network where you follow people you know, but it is also a social network where you follow brands, celebrities, and other popular accounts.

These accounts tend to get more followers every day than they lose if they lose any at all. This means that your number of followers will grow as time goes on.

This growth can happen in waves. One day, you might get 15 new followers (new friends!), and the next day, you might get 200 new followers, causing changes in followers and followings.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

Why Does My Instagram Following or Followers Keep Changing

Instagram is the new social media craze. It can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it can be annoying.

One of the problems with Instagram is that it doesn’t tell you why your followers keep changing. Why do the people who follow me on Instagram keep changing?

There are a few reasons why this could happen. If you have more than one Instagram account, the system will add up all the followers from your accounts and divide them by however many accounts you have.

For instance, if you have two accounts and 100 followers, your total will be 200 and divided by two for 100 for each account.

Another reason your following keeps changing is that your Instagram account got hacked.

More popular reasons are that you may have accidentally unfollowed someone or you may have accidentally blocked someone.

Another reason why your Instagram following keeps changing is that some people unfollow others as a way to clean up their feed.

It is also true for businesses that want to be selective about who they follow. It can also happen when someone declines to follow someone else back or blocks them from seeing their content.

Why Does My Instagram Following Keep Going Up And Down

It is quite simple to get caught up in the numbers game on Instagram if you follow a large number of people.

Your account will expand (and shrink) when people follow you, unfollow you, and follow back. The reason why these numbers fluctuate is because of the other actions that each user takes.

If you’re trying to optimize for growth, you might do all kinds of things to attract new followers:

You buy them from a company that sells fake followers. Some apps let you follow thousands of people at once and hope they follow back.

You try to get famous on Instagram by following celebrities who might return the favor. These strategies are not sustainable and can hurt your account’s long-term authenticity and value.

Here are a few ways to build up your following in a way that doesn’t risk damaging your reputation—and still allows for plenty of new connections:

People aren’t always getting new followers; sometimes, they’re just unfollowing old ones.

It can happen if they notice their numbers are dipping below some arbitrary threshold and decide it’s worth the effort to remove people who haven’t engaged with their content for a while.

The results are a higher follower count but no real change in the size of their audience.

Second, people whose numbers are going up can buy followers outright or use sneaky ways to get more followers without earning them naturally.

There are places on Instagram where you can buy fake followers, just like there are places on Twitter where you can buy fake retweets.

Some companies sell “instant” followers that give your account an artificial boost as soon as they sign up, while others offer longer-term memberships that lead to more followers.

Here are just a few things that determine your Instagram following. For example your current level of activity on the platform.

How many people are currently using Instagram also comes into play? (there are only so many slots for each successive user)

If your friends and family members don’t use the Instagram platform that often then this can also affect how many of them follow you.

Were you popular before you started using Instagram? The more popular you were the more people would have wanted to follow you.

The type of content you put out onto the platform—specifically, how much engagement it gets from your followers will also affect your follower count.

How good are your hashtags and how frequently do you use them. Using hashtags associated with your profile name often will also affect this.

Why Did My Followers Go Up On Instagram?

I don’t know why your followers on Instagram went up, but I have some guesses. Posting photos more often that are better quality will potentially increase the number of followers you get,

Having more time to post will also make this easier to execute.

If you didn’t feel pressured to post many photos every day to get a lot of likes, your followers will go up in response to this.

Using funny captions will have more people engaged and get you more followers.

Having fewer photos looking like an ad for a brand and just posting about your life will be relatable to more people and will make your followers go up.

Maybe it’s because you started posting more stories, which are more eye-catching than regular posts.

If your engagement was higher because you didn’t use hashtags as much or follow pages that repost pictures from other people.

Why does my instagram following keep going up and down

I don’t know why your followers went up, but what’s important is that they did go up and that they stayed up, and they’re still going up, and if you want your followers to go up too, here’s what you should do:

  1. Stop using hashtags as much
  2. Stop reposting other people’s photos
  3. Post more stories instead of regular posts
  4. Have perfect captions

Why Do My Instagram Followers Keep Going Up And Down

If you have noticed that your Instagram followers are fluctuating, the following could be the reason.

You’ve Posted New Photos or Videos

People who haven’t seen the new content you posted on Instagram may become interested in it now that it’s been updated.

It has the potential to increase the number of people who follow you as well as the number of comments and likes on your posts.

You’ve been Promoted By Another Account

Instagram has introduced several features designed to help people discover new accounts they might be interested in following, including roundups and suggestions from other accounts they follow.

If you’ve gotten featured in one of these feeds, it could have increased your followers — even if they didn’t come directly from the source!

Your Account Might Have Been Hacked.

If you manage your Instagram account through a third-party app or website, such as Hootsuite or Followerwonk, it leaves your account vulnerable to being hacked by someone who is looking to increase the amount of engagement on their page.

A hacker may potentially attempt to make a profit by selling access to your account back to you.

You Purchased Followers From Third-Party Service

If those bots are eliminated from the platform, there will be no way to retrieve them in the future!

It’s also possible that someone else bought followers on your behalf, and now they’re trying to sell them back to you because they realized they could earn more money if they just sold them outright instead. This scenario is also possible (see above).

People Unfollow You After Following You

People unfollow you after following you because they’re afraid of being added to a list they don’t belong to or getting DMs from someone who doesn’t follow them back. Although this may seem like a minor issue, it’s a massive issue for some people.

Let me ask a question, have you ever had someone follow you and then unfollow you? Most likely, yes.

Did this make you feel sad or upset? If so, I’m sorry, but I have to tell you something: You’re following too many people on Instagram, so they’ll all stop following you, even if they follow the same number of accounts.

Yes, it is possible to be stuck in a loop where you follow people and they follow you back until they decide to stop following accounts with more followers.

Many people look at their follower count and wonder what happened to the people that followed them and then unfollowed them. There are a few different reasons why this happens:

You might have followed someone in the past with the hopes of getting more followers in return, and you might even have utilized a service like an auto-follow service that follows back or a service that allows you to pay for followers to achieve this goal.

It may give the impression that you are engaging in spam, which may cause some of your followers to stop following you.

The same thing may occur if your profile is loaded with spam hashtags and you never upload any content that is unique to you.

A second reason why people unfollow could be due to the Instagram shadowban. If your account looks spammy or seems to post too much content too quickly, it will trigger an algorithm called the “Instagram shadowban,”.

This means that some or all of your posts will not show up in people’s feeds. It is an effort to keep Instagram free from spam accounts and users, but it can also affect accounts that post too often to gain more followers.

  • Another reason could be following too many people back on the same day.

Crowdfire is a social media management tool that allows you to see who’s unfollowed you on Twitter and Instagram.

So anytime someone has the nerve to unfollow me, I log in, hit the Follow button again, and keep on as if nothing happened.

It may sound trivial, but I’m sick of all these questionable people out there attempting to build their audience by making this lame-o move of automatically following and un-following people. It’s getting on my nerves.

I’ll tell you the truth: some of these apps are downright sketchy. Many of them are made by bots or spammers who want to steal your followers.

At least one good thing is being done with an app like Crowdfire, like helping someone keep track.

Make Sure You’re Posting Good Content

People follow you on Instagram to see what you’re up to, so they should expect your profile to reflect that. If you haven’t posted anything in a while, and your followers can’t even tell what you look like, they will unfollow you for being inactive.

If your photos are repeatedly just about the same thing, people might get bored and start unfollowing you.

You want to be exciting and engaging enough that following you is worth their time, so make sure you post good content. You should bear in mind that :

  1. People want to follow you for fun, exciting content.
  2. They don’t want to follow a bunch of ads or boring pictures.
  3. If your content is terrible, people will unfollow you.
  4. Make sure you’re posting good content.

Interact With Followers More

The Instagram algorithm considers how frequently you post and interact with your followers. If you don’t often post or don’t respond to comments, your followers might see your account as having low engagement and unfollow.

Additionally, suppose you follow too many people at one time. Your account may automatically unfollow some of the accounts you recently followed to keep its following ratio: following reasonable.

There are ways to avoid this issue, though! Try posting more photos and responding to comments regularly.

If you’re trying to gain more followers, try using an Instagram growth service like FollowAdder that will help increase your followers without losing any real ones.

Remove Fake Followers 

There are two ways to tell if someone has fake followers: their total number of followers compared to the number of people they follow and the number of photos they post.

Fake accounts tend to follow hundreds of people and have thousands of followers. If a profile looks suspicious, there are a few ways you can check its validity:

First, look at other images from the account – if everything looks like a stock photo or is very obviously fake (like an image of a model), it might be an Instagram bot.

Second, check out FakersApp.com; this site allows you to upload an image and check to see if the profile that posted it is fake. It can give you some insight into whether a profile is real or not.

Finally, you can look at their follower-to-following ratio; if they don’t even have any posts on their page yet, they’re following hundreds of people, and they likely bought those followers.

Instagram Updated Their Algorithm

Instagram has finally launched an update to what we’ve all been anxiously awaiting, its algorithm-driven feed.

The chronological feed was king for a long time, serving up everything that happened on the app in the order it occurred, with nothing more to guide us but our social media savvy. But then, it happened.

A few years ago, Instagram started putting out two different feeds: A normal chronological one and another randomly ordered one.

Users were frustrated by this change, and for a good reason—it didn’t feel nearly as convenient or user-friendly as the chronological feed had been.

Then, earlier this year, Instagram announced that they would be launching a new algorithm designed to increase the engagement rates of posts on their platform.

This algorithm would consider many factors to determine which posts should get shown first when users return to the app: time posted, likes received, comments received, and much more.

This change is intended to benefit users and Instagram’s advertisers. People will be exposed to more posts they’re likely to engage with, and advertisers will see better results because their messages will be more visible.

The update is part of Instagram’s considerable efforts to increase engagement on the app. Last month, the company announced that it would start showing videos in place of photos in users’ feeds.

The addition of videos may have been a move toward generating more traffic and bringing in more ad revenue for Instagram. According to a report by TechCrunch, the number of shares traded per day has tripled since 2015.

What’s so great about this update is that they’re finally giving us what we’ve wanted: a separate feed showcasing popular and engaging posts.

It means more room for content with high engagement rates to get some good exposure (since it’s not competing with all of your other updates for space) and fewer posts getting shown in the

Be More Active

Many users often wonder why their Instagram following is decreasing or how they can get more followers. There are also many cases where you gain followers rapidly and then suddenly lose them.

One of the first things to keep in mind is that your follower number isn’t the only way to measure your popularity on the social media platform.

Different factors play into determining your popularity. These will determine whether or not you have influence over others and if people will pay attention to what you’re posting. These factors include:

  • your number of posts
  • Whether or not you use hashtags
  • The content of your posts.
  • How frequently do you post?
  • An overall theme for your account

While these factors may seem simple enough to understand, they become much more complicated in the real world.

Many people may think they can create an account with a random set of pictures and then sit back and wait for people to start following them, but that’s not exactly how it works.

That’s because there is a certain level of dedication required to be followed on Instagram by others. Check out my article on why random people follow you on Instagram.

Conclusion

Instagram changed its algorithm so that there wouldn’t be as much spam on its app. It means that many of your inactive followers will no longer see your content in their feed, which may result in a drop in your follower count.

The good news is that it’s pretty easy to get these people back: post more often, interact with them more (comment and like other posts), and be more active overall if you want to keep a healthy Instagram following.