Why You Should Delete Followers

I deleted 200+ followers of my Instagram account between Dec and now. And about the same number the year prior. It may seem counter productive to suggest removing followers as a strategy but there are a few reasons why it can be a good idea.

⚡️If your discernment is flagged by who is watching what you post, you will pull back on what you're putting out there;

⚡️Having fake or dodgy accounts** forming part of your following can affect the perception of your account validity by Instagram and others (this is one reason why I don't recommend buying followers);

⚡️If a big chunk of your following is not your target audience it may skew who your content gets seen by in organic reach outside of your current followers and,

⚡️People who were never going to and do not engage with your content pull your overall engagement rate down.

Your engagement rate is the likes/comments on a post divided by the number of followers you have x 100%. The average is when you add up all from e.g. the last 30 days and also divide by the number of posts during that time.

It is natural for it to lower as you grow but should still ideally be between 1-3.5% for average/good engagement, 3.5-6% for high and over 6% for very high.

If you’re an influencer, this (as well as your overall follows) should matter if the companies you want to work with are doing due diligence. But even if you’re not an influencer, Instagram’s algorithm clocks this and will show less of your stuff to people if the initial sample it gets seen by aren’t keen to engage.

There are too many posts to show in people’s feeds so for the purpose of IG keeping people on their platform for longer, it needs to be the stuff people are more excited about.

So, in theory your account should grow QUICKER (with more genuine followers) when you have a higher engagement rate after dropping some dead weight. This is of course assuming you regularly post brilliant content too tho.

**Lower numbers of spam/dodgy accounts will also naturally follow people to look more authentic, to try to get return followers or when they’re fishing so it’s something everyone should sweep for where practical.

Feel the nudge to apply this strategy?

God Bless,

⁠

P.S.

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