It may be a harsh surprise if you have not known about the follow/unfollow game that individuals engage with on Instagram. Now, what exactly is it, and how is it an idea? The earliest moment you realize it is after you’ve written a post you’re glad of and received a few likes, however more significantly, a significant lot of prospective followers.

You’re content and pleased with the efforts you have made till you notice that your follower figure has decreased.

Well, have you just gone on Instagram and received a new follower? “Who might they be?” you wonder, and you go on to their account, where you see some adorable photographs of pets, toddlers, travel locations, and fashionable attires.

You press the “Follow” icon. You find this individual has unfollowed you a couple of weeks later.

This is the game of following and unfollowing.

Many Instagram accounts employ this method in an attempt to increase their following. They follow other users who they believe could be interested in their own profile and afterwards unfollow as quickly as they receive a follow back.

How Can You Know Who To Follow?

To be really fair, hardly anything. You are only a bystander in the Follow/Unfollow action.

To make a lengthy tale short, some Instagram users follow a large range of other Instagram users in the hopes that they would follow them in return. Users then unfollow your profile in order to improve their own.

Their followers are numerous, yet the percentage of individuals they really follow is little, giving the impression that they are famous, worthwhile to join, and ‘valuable.’ Profiles that employ this strategy, or should I say humans and bots, have little sense of devotion or developing genuine connections with other Instagram users.

The finest way you could accomplish this is to be genuine when it comes to building relationships and to join individuals with whom you want to engage.

This involves monitoring and interacting with your intended audience and those who are engaged in your brand services and anything you need to offer.

Over the course of the day, you’ll have a slew of individuals who would follow you in the hopes that you’ll repay the favor, just for them to unfollow you a couple of weeks after.

Having this in view, it’s acceptable to be picky as to whom you should follow back. If you receive a follow, go to their account and inquire about their motives.

If they don’t seem to want to communicate with you, you understand there’s no reason to connect with them.

Another point to remember is that Instagrammers would be equally as conservative as you are whenever it regards following other users, so the ideal approach to gain and retain followers is to provide material that resonates with them.

You would thrive despite anything if you are really passionate about developing contacts, making connections, providing content that shows this, and having people engage with you.

The Follow/Unfollow Game As a Growth Strategy

Many Instagram accounts employ the “follow for follow” strategy, which means that if you follow their profile, they will follow you in return.

These profiles are often operated by machines or scammers, therefore when they follow you again, they increase your following while not engaging with any of your material. Your interaction rate will suffer as a result of this.

Your engagement rate is one of the elements that the Instagram engine considers when deciding who to display your material. The longer your followers engage with your content, the more people will see it. This involvement is influenced in part by your total following.

For instance, if you have 100-person followers and 25 people liked your content and 5 responded, you have a 30 percent audience engagement which is quite good and will increase your picture effectiveness.

If you possess 1,000 followers and a similar amount of users interact with your material, you have a 3% interaction ratio which is an extremely bad audience interaction rate for that many followers.

You may tell how this is heading. You can gain additional followers by playing the follow/unfollow business, however, if they don’t interact with your material, this will have an impact on your Instagram algorithmic rating.

And if your material isn’t being seen, you would not be enabled to touch the ones who would benefit from it. It’s a hard-to-reverse chain reaction.

Consider what considerable time you invest in searching for possible followers, keeping account of who you have followed, who has followed you again, who has not followed you back, and who you ought to unfollow. All of that time may be effectively invested digital, making long-lasting and significant interactions with your intended audience.

Rather, here we have mentioned three things you could be pursuing on Instagram:

1.  Attract Your Existing Followers

Reply to comments on your pictures, remark on their articles as well, and reply to private messaging to make your followers feel important whenever you have time.

By posting valuable content and interacting with your followers you can attract your existing as well as prospective followers. This would help you reach your target audience and also help you gain actual views and likes on your posts which result would increase your engagement rates.

2.  Participate in Conversations With the Profiles You Follow

Demonstrate to the algorithm that you are not a bot.  Make insightful comments on the posts of people you follow. If you are using Instagram for marketing, you ought to be monitoring and reacting to profiles in your area.

Replying to the messages your followers send to you or interacting with them by liking or commenting on their posts helps build a genuine relationship on the platform which is again a very good method to increase engagement rates.

When you build a good relationship with other users, they would definitely help you grow by interacting more and more with your content. You can try to gain real and organic Instagram views and likes. You can learn more about this on MegaFamous.

3. Interact With People You Believe Might Be Interested in Connecting With You

Did fantastic content appear in your explore section? Definitely like and remark but you do not have to always follow them, you should start spreading out and making meaningful relationships with other individuals. 

By doing this people will be compelled to follow you if they like your content and what you offer on Instagram particularly if they like what you share and they feel you are authentic and real.

Conclusion

Here was everything important you must know about the follow/ unfollow game on Instagram. Although many users think it is a great strategy for growth on Instagram, there are several other methods that are far way better and can be used for the purpose.

Instead of making your engagement rates decrease, go for strategies that actually make a difference and help you gain genuine followers and likes on Instagram.