Did you lose a ton of Instagram followers?

There is some major buzz on social media this week about the loss of Instagram followers. So what’s happening and should you be worried?

There have been some accounts that were impacted by recent Instagram “bugs” and people– famous and small businesses alike were impacted. If you lost a large chunk of followers overnight here are a few reasons why this could be happening:

Instagram Bugs

Instagram claims there are a few “bugs” that have impacted your following. In a statement on Twitter the iconic social media platform announced, “We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible”.

Some of the major brands impacted were Kylie Jenner, Cristiano Ronaldo, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez.

Fake Accounts 

However, Instagram also recently released a statement saying they were going to crack down on accounts that use third-party apps to search out fake likes and followers. Which has caused many people to wonder if this is the cause of the sudden and drastic drop in followers.

Many accounts (famous, small business and your wanna-be influencer) have purchased followers and or likes to help boost their digital presence and tap into some of the Instagram features only available to accounts with 10k followers or more.

In a recent press release from Instagram they stated:

Recently, we’ve seen accounts use third-party apps to artificially grow their audience. Every day people come to Instagram to have real experiences, including genuine interactions. It is our responsibility to ensure these experiences aren’t disrupted by inauthentic activity. Starting today, we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity. We’ve built machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity.

All of this is due to an effort to make sure Instagram remains one of the fastest growing social media platforms.

Twitter reportedly lost users due to the overwhelming amount of automated posts, follows and likes from bots and third-party apps. Instagram (and parent company Facebook) want to avoid having the same fate. So they are doing whatever they can to force people to use, as in actually use, their platforms. This is why Instagram doesn’t allow the use of most third-party apps. They want live users who are actually interacting on their accounts.

This is also why scheduling posts can have a negative impact with your interactions and impressions.

Further speculation about the recent decrease in follower count was noted in an article from Hubshout stating that Instagram plans to rid the platform of fake followers to make it harder to be an actual Influencer.

While there is no guarantee that the loss in followers is due to the fake account purge, it is important to note Instagram’s threat.

Hubshout stated:

“Even if you haven’t purposefully used these tactics, you may see your follower numbers and engagement impacted over the coming weeks as Instagram works to remove inauthenticity from the network. And if you have purchased followers or other activities, it’s probably best to remove those followers yourself before you ever get a notification from Instagram.”

So what does this mean for you?

Focus on growing your account organically, or hire a marketing team to help. Spend time and energy creating great content and be active on social media. Social media is a community effort. Engage with people, comment, save and share posts, send direct messages. Speaking of sharing content, you can share this article. Cheers!