On Instagram has emerged a new (very effective) fashion among those who manage accounts with the focus on memes and humor: make profiles private to increase the number of “followers”.
In recent months a number of Instagram accounts with the focus on memes and humor has made a move so that a boat could soon be considered (at least) curious: make their profiles private.
Among the accounts that have seen fit to throw the “lock” to their posts for IG followers include Factsdaily (11.3 million followers), Bestvines (9.2 million), Advice (8.8 million), Shithead Steve (2, 6 million) and how it looks (8.1 million).
Users who wish to access the contents of these accounts have no choice but to click on the “follow” button. And precisely for this reason (so simple) make your private accounts has become the particular “installment” of many Instagramers to stick the lug on Instagram.
“Some Instagramers are doing their accounts private because they want to take the glove to more subscribers when one of their followers sends a post to a friend, who has no other choice but to follow the account if you really want to see the publication. It’s as simple as that, “explains Jack Wagner, who manages several meme accounts on Instagram, speaking to The Atlantic.
And despite the apparent (and ravenous) simplicity of the trick, the truth is that it works (go if it works). Reid Haley, founder of Doing Things, a media company that manages to buy real Instagram followers accounts with a global tally of 14 million followers, reports on the success of the strategy.
One of the largest accounts operated by Haley on Instagram was growing at a rate of approximately 10,000 new subscribers each week. After the account became private, the 10,000 new weekly followers became 100,000. Currently, and in view of the success of its strategy, 75% of Haley’s Instagram accounts are private.
Before the tactic (which seemed to prove effective) of keeping accounts private became fashionable on Instagram, the Instagramers were debtors to grow almost solely and exclusively from the capricious algorithm of the social network (and that it would do well to do hollow its contents in the “Explore” section).
“When you make your private account, you stop appearing in the ‘Explore’ section. But I could see that it does not matter if this section appears or not, “says Sonny, who manages several accounts on Instagram and who prefers not to reveal his last name.
The main account of Sonny on Instagram continues to be public and manages to get approximately 200 new “followers”, a figure that seems extraordinarily lean if we take into account that through the “Explore” section its contents reach close to one millions of users.
On the other hand, much faster is the growth of the accounts Sonny currently manages privately. Sonny’s private accounts can accumulate up to 10,000 new subscribers per day (without needing to appear in the “Explore” section).
For Instagramers (those who work in the field of memes and humor) making their private accounts is also extremely interesting for two other reasons. On the one hand, in private accounts it is somewhat more complicated for the user to press (as well as) the “unfollow” button. If the user clicks on this button, Instagram always asks him if he is sure to do “unfollow” (something that does not happen, on the contrary in public accounts). On the other hand, private accounts are less exposed to their content being denounced for reasons of “copyright” (something that is our daily bread for Instagramers who are nourished by memes).
Not all Instagramers are convinced by the trick of making their accounts private and prefer to “troll” the algorithm of the social network using old methods such as “Instagram Pods” (communities of users who support each other to give wings to their own content).
Even so, “learning” the Instagram algorithm to make its way into the “Explore” section is not the dream of all the Instagramers (or at least it is not in the case of those who develop in the arena of the meme).