Having a private account gives you more control than being public does and it limits who has access to your content. This is the biggest plus – you can decide who's watching! This control makes it trickier for content thieves to repost or use your pictures and videos. Many accounts simply repost other people's content.
When you change your account from public to private the people who are already following you on your public account will still be following you on your private account. We recommend that young people regularly review their followers list, making sure they have only accepted followers who they know offline.
For most people, it all comes down to privacy. If an Instagram account is public, anyone can look it up in the app and view anything they've posted. Private accounts can still be searched and found on Instagram, but unless someone is following the account, they can't view any of their posts.
#1: Make Your Instagram Private to Get More Followers
This is the big one and definitely the most important. According to several large meme accounts, the main reason they went private is because it helps them attract new followers.
Many brands will only offer you free products. But, some companies will pay $10 per 1,000 followers, while others pay over $800 per 1,000 followers. You can maximize the money you make when you publish sponsored photos.
There's more chance you'll get hacked, etc. We advise people to stay in public only if they are looking to grow on Instagram and trying to get their content out there into the world. If you are only using it to consume content and talk with your friends, then you should have your account in private.
Some people follow others on the basis of the contents in their profile. So if you make your account private they may step back from following you as they are unaware of the contents in your account.
If your Instagram account is set to private and you add a hashtag to your post, the post won't appear publicly on the corresponding hashtag page. Keep in mind that when your private posts include a hashtag, only your approved followers will be able to see them on hashtag pages or in chats when sent as a direct message.
Gain more Instagram followers.
Back in 2018 to 2020, there was a trend when big meme accounts and influencers made their profiles private, and their followership grew despite that. For this reason, it is now believed that making an Instagram private can help you boost your followership.
Avoid identity theft
One of the biggest reasons to keep your social platforms private is to reduce the chance of identity theft. This is where someone steals enough of your information to be able to take on your identity. You're opening up to these attacks if you share too much information online.
Ghost followers are inactive or fake Instagram accounts that may follow you, contributing to your overall follower count. However, they never interact with your content. Sometimes these accounts are created by real people who simply don't use their account.
If you're losing followers on Instagram, there's a very good chance that you're posting content that your ideal reader isn't interested in. If you share a random collection of posts without any direction or intention, you'll lose followers.
It's a sign that you're not helping to grow the community around you or that your content is low quality. The Instagram algorithm favors content with high engagement. If your content doesn't do well, it's less likely to show up in the Explore feed. Low engagement with other accounts can also have an impact.
Instagram doesn't allow users to see who views their profile. So if you look through someone's profile and don't like or comment on a post, there's no way for them to know who sees the pictures.
Is Instagram safe? Instagram isn't any safer or dangerous than any other social media platform. For the most part, all social media sites mine your personal information to target you with ads or to sell your information to partners.
While some brands pay anything from $5 to $10 per thousand followers, others offer $100 for every 100 followers you have. According to USA Today, an influencer with 10,000 to 50,000 active fans can make a few thousand per post. Instagram influencers with up to 1 million followers can see $10,000 per post.
Once influencers reach over 100k followers, they tend to start charging at least $1,000 for just one post such as Sam Ushiro who has 283k followers and charges $1,500 a post.
10,000–50,000 followers = Micro-influencer. 50,000–500,000 followers = Mid-tier influencer. 500,000–1,000,000 followers = Macro-influencer. 1,000,000+ followers = Mega-influencers.
If you don't post regularly your followers won't become your brand evangelist, they won't support you enough and you might even lose them. What to do — Invest time in creating a content strategy, create, plan and schedule your posts and make sure you don't miss posting for any reason.
You are not consistent
Posting more frequently generally results in more engagement and followers. It obviously takes more time, but it's worth creating more content, and scheduling it out for consistency.
Real users won't follow you.
Influencers and companies often buy followers to boost their credibility, thinking that users are more likely to follow an account with 20,000 followers than 200. But you're not fooling anyone, and the users you are hoping to attract will run the other way.
Why to consider removing ghost followers. Having followers who don't interact with you will affect your engagement rate negatively, as the formula depends on dividing your total number of interactions (likes and comments) by the amount of followers you have.