There are a number of reasons as to why you would want people to stop following you on Instagram. Instagram makes it easy for us to reveal personal details about ourselves. How often do we use location tags that show our followers where we are and what we are up to. Having this information readily available online can be dangerous. Specifically, if we realise that our follower list is made up of many people that we don’t know.
Whilst Instagram is great for catching up with old friends, way too often do we receive spam messages on Instagram messenger. These messages can be inappropriate and frustrating. Or maybe you just no longer want to share your content with certain followers anymore. Whether it is your personal account or your child’s or even a business account here are a few ways to help.
Set Your Profile to Private
Having a private account means that only your follower list can see your content. In order to join this exclusive list you have to accept them first. Users no longer have access to your account but instead can only see your handle and profile picture. Therefore, if you have an idea that they may be a spam account or may try sell you something, you can reject their follow request. By setting your account to private you will have greater control over your account. Whilst having a private account provides a sense of security, it is important to remember that all your followers on your private list have access to your content. You should also get to know the way to view a private Instagram profile. You may want to also remove some users as well as making your profile private. It is really easy to remove followers, click on the list and simply “remove” anyone you don’t want to have access.
Turn Off Similar Accounts
Turning off similar accounts. Instagram likes to be helpful by suggesting accounts that may be of interest to you based on the types of accounts you follow. When you have this feature on, spammers can use it to find your account. By disabling this feature it makes you less visible to them and you should receive fewer requests.
Be Mindful of What You Like And Comment on
When on Instagram it is really easy to like, comment and share content. Especially when you follow pages on interest to you. However, every time you do this you are exposing your account. Spammers can click onto your username by looking through the comment and like section. This is especially important if you follow many other pages that aren’t private. Pages such as these will often use hashtags to draw further traffic to their own pages. Meaning that when you comment on these posts, the hashtag can be targeted by spam bots and increase your chances of being sent follow requests.
Be Wary of Account Shares
Your followers may really love the content that you create and subsequently want to share it with their own. Instagram has loads of different sharing options that include stories. Your followers can share both your posts and stories with their community through the share button. There is also a close friends stories option where you can limit the people who have access to your private stories. Stories are a great addition to Instagram but can mean that more people want to follow you. It is really easy to stop your followers sharing your content in the Settings area of Instagram.
Limit Your Connections
As social media is so fast and allows connections with literally anyone across the globe. It is recommended to limit the amount of people who have access to your feed. The information you share online should be similar to that you share in the real world. Therefore, connections with people you know, i.e. friends, family, colleagues are your safest bet. Following pages with large followings can lead to spamming.
Block Accounts That Make You Uncomfortable
Instagram tries to protect us and our data by providing us with the ability to block accounts. This prevents them from seeing your content and contacting you. This is a fantastic feature as it makes many feel safer online. When you block an individual, they can no longer search for you and vice versa.
Report to Instagram
Alongside blocking users, you can also report the content to Instagram. By flagging issues up to Instagram such as spammers, they can close down accounts or restrict their activity. Reporting to Instagram is only effective if the person has violated Instagram’s community guidelines. Therefore, they have to break a rule of service, not send you annoying messages. It is important to take this into consideration, so if a follower is annoying you, you may also want to block them as well as report them to Instagram.
Stop Sharing Contacts
Another way to stop people following you on Instagram is through not sharing your contacts to Instagram. By doing this, Instagram no longer has access to the contacts on your phone. This method makes it more unlikely that you will pop up in people recommended followers.
Check The Search Engines
Lastly, check to see if your posts emerge in search engine searches. It is unlikely that this will happen as Instagram doesn’t allow this. But if you use third party web viewers for your Instagram they can scape your profile and post your content. This means that anyone that uses similar keywords will be able to find your posts. Cut off all third party apps connected to your Instagram, making you less visible.
These tips should help to reduce people following you on Instagram. However, you may still receive the odd request that you can ignore as you so please.
