How Mass Unfollowing On Instagram Can Grow Your Account

It seems a little counter-intuitive, but one of the best ways to elevate yourself to the next level of social media fame is actually to prune down the list of people you’re following. Gone are the days when people thought following back every one of their followers was the right thing to do. Now influencers value the ratio between how many people tune in for their content and how few they follow themselves.

Mass unfollowing is the process of removing accounts from your follow list in bulk, as opposed to one at a time through the Instagram app. It’s one of the easiest ways to create that attractive ratio when used in conjunction with other growth methods.

Lots of people promise can't-miss strategies for growing a social following, but what’s become known as the “follow-unfollow” method has been a dependable place to start. In short, this involves reaching out to follow other accounts on the service, some of whom will see the notification and click through to your account.

After a set period of time, you evaluate the results. People who didn’t follow you back can typically be unfollowed immediately, but you need to be cautious with the remainder. Obviously maintaining a high follower to following ratio is the name of the game, but quickly unfollowing accounts can seem inauthentic. You’re obviously under no obligation to continue following people for any reason, but it’s a behavior that it sometimes frowned on.

Running a follow-unfollow campaign can take a lot of effort, which is why automated tools can be essential. Clicking on each and every individual account will wear out your fingers and waste the time you could be spending creating effective, relatable content. Instead, conducting analysis of hashtags, locations and topics can result in user lists that will be more responsive to your material. That analysis can be done manually, but advances in machine learning have also shown to be effective.

A number of companies offer Instagram automation software. One of the most effective on the market is Combin Growth, a robust system that allows you to target, engage and grow your audience using a portfolio of tools.

It’s incredibly easy to mass unfollow with Combin Growth. The software is available for Mac, PC and Linux platforms, and is free to use at the starter level. It couldn’t be simpler to automate the task once it’s installed and authorized to manage your Instagram account - all you have to do is click the Not Followers tab, which shows the accounts you follow that do not follow you back, and then click Select All, Unfollow The Users to automatically begin a time-lapsed process that will prune non-mutuals from your account. You can easily monitor its progress in the Tasks tab.

The free version of Growth lets you perform up to 100 of these automated actions a day, while the paid plans greatly raise that cap, as well as allowing advanced features like multiple account management, larger search result sets and more. If you’re truly committed to growing your Instagram platform, it’s well worth the investment. Combin Growth’s tools are results-driven and built for social success.

Growth’s advanced Instagram search lets you more efficiently identify accounts in your niche that are relevant to your account. By adding them to a follow list and strategically liking and commenting on their posts after you connect with them, you can readily get their attention and encourage a follow back. Over time, you can steadily remove the accounts you follow or purge them en masse.

Using audience management tools, you can create follow groups and monitor them for reciprocal activity. In addition, you can monitor accounts that you followed and unfollowed to prevent accidental re-following during batch processes, as well as set important accounts that you want to make sure you continue following.

It’s also vital to ensure that your mass follows and unfollows don’t appear automated. Instagram has numerous AI monitoring features that can throttle or disable accounts that seem to be exhibiting unnatural behavior. Growth performs these tasks on a time-delayed basis over an extended span, causing it to not trigger automation warnings.

Mass following and unfollowing works best when the accounts targeted don’t have high ratios themselves. You want to identify social profiles that are willing to follow other people, not accounts that work to appear exclusive. While a follow by a more exclusive account can garner more clout, those are harder to come by, especially if your follower count is low by comparison. Once your metrics are higher, it’s easier to communicate the value of a follow to other accounts.

Growing a social media account isn’t something that can happen overnight. Using follow-unfollow and other methods is still dependent on catching the attention of the real people behind the accounts. But if you’re confident in your content and willing to spend the time to organically elevate your profile, you can transform your Instagram into a powerful force to build and express your brand.

While there’s no 100% guaranteed way to grow an Instagram account, there are certainly best practices that can help you push your social media to the upper echelon. Mass unfollowing can be an important first step to purge your list, improve your ratio and position yourself as an account that deserves more attention.