Should I Use the Follow/Unfollow Method?
I hear this question often: Should I use the follow/unfollow method to grow my account?
The short answer: NO!
I wish I could leave it at that, but I know it can be a tempting way to ‘grow.’ So, let me give you a little more than a one-word answer.
The follow/unfollow method, in case you are unfamiliar with it, is a system to grow your follower number. As the name suggests, you go follow a bunch of accounts, wait a couple days and then unfollow those same accounts. The hope is that after following an account, they will receive a notification that you have followed. They will then in turn follow you. And your follower number grows.
In reality, the follow/unfollow method is bad for your account and therefore bad for business.
6 reasons to avoid the follow/unfollow growth method:
ONE:: The people who follow you back are often not your target market. For this method to truly work you like hundreds or thousands of account in a couple days - which probably means they are not all members of your target audience. For you business to succeed you need to be followed by people who actually want the good/service you provide. This method will not get you there.
TWO:: It makes your account look bad and untrustworthy. People know when an account or brand is doing this, and they aren’t impressed. Accounts that use the follow/unfollow often come across as desperate for growth and insincere. I had someone tell me once that they were follow/unfollowed by the same account 4 times in 6 months. EEK! Talk about desperate.
THREE:: It wastes your valuable time. The amount of time it takes to follow accounts and then go through and unfollow them a few days later, could instead be used to actually cultivate real engagement, to create content, to interact with your current followers, etc… It’s a waste of your time.
FOUR:: It messes up your algorithm. The posts that show up in your feed and on your explore page are based on the accounts you spend the most amount of time looking at. When you follow a bunch of accounts you don’t care about the accounts and content you do want to see is lost in the shuffle.
FIVE:: It often uses bots, which can damage your account. If you aren’t doing the following/unfollowing yourself, chances are you hired a company to do it for you. And that usually means the tasks are being completed through automation, which goes against the IG policies. Doing that puts your account at risk of being blocked or shut down. Nobody wants that.
SIX:: It misses the whole point of followers. Trust me, the follower number is not as important as the engagement you have with those people who chose to follow you. But focusing all your time, energy and money on this method, you are missing the point of what Instagram should be all about for your business.
