As an entrepreneur and content creator, growing an engaged following on Instagram is important. But privacy should also be a priority. If you want to hide who is following you on Instagram, you have a few options.
Should You Hide Your Instagram Followers?
Before diving into the how, let‘s discuss the why…
There are a few reasons you may want to hide your Instagram followers:
- Protect Personal Information: Obscuring your followers makes it harder for strangers to gather intelligence about you. This improves safety and privacy.
- Avoid Comparison: Seeing influencers with millions of followers can lead to unfair comparison. Hiding your followers puts more focus on your content.
- Reduce Follower Fraud: Public follower counts motivate people to artificially inflate numbers. Private counts reduce this temptation.
However, there are also disadvantages:
- Growth Limitations: Private accounts have restricted visibility, which can severely limit organic follower growth. This is especially true for those relying on hashtags.
- Inconvenience: Manually approving/removing followers is time-consuming. And blocking users permanently severs communication.
As an entrepreneur, you need to weigh these pros and cons closely. Protecting privacy matters, but visibility and access also impact business growth.
Make Your Account Private
The simplest way to hide your followers list is to make your Instagram account private. This prevents non-followers from seeing any part of your profile.
To Make Your Account Private:
- Open the Instagram app and go to your profile
- Tap the menu icon (three lines) in the top right corner
- Select "Settings"
- Choose "Privacy"
- Toggle "Private Account" on
Benefits
- Followers list and posts completely hidden
- Total control over who can access content
- Easy one-step solution
Downsides
- Severely limits organic reach and engagement
- Reduces collaborations with non-followers
- Requires manually approving follow requests
As an entrepreneur using Instagram for business, I‘d caution against private accounts unless privacy is an extremely high priority. The reach limitations are very likely to stunt growth.
Remove Individual Followers
If you only want to block specific followers from accessing your profile, you can remove them manually without going private.
To Remove a Follower:
- Go to your profile and tap "Followers"
- Scroll through and tap "Remove" next to unwanted followers
- Confirm by tapping "Remove" again
This is more targeted than a private account. It also avoids severely restricting your entire account‘s visibility.
However, removing followers one-by-one can be extremely tedious. And it does not fully hide your profile or block screenshots. So it‘s an imperfect solution if privacy is your chief aim.
Block Specific Users
Blocking followers prevents them from interacting with your profile in any way:
To Block Someone:
- Go to their profile
- Tap the three dots in the top right corner
- Select "Block" to confirm
Benefits include:
- User cannot view your profile or follower list at all
- More severe and permanent than just removing
Downsides:
- Does not hide your general followers count
- You lose access to blocked user‘s profile also
Like removing followers, blocking is more targeted than a private account. But it is best reserved only for users you want to permanently restrict.
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide clarifies the options around hiding Instagram followers in 2024. As an entrepreneur relying on Instagram, you need to balance visibility with privacy.
My recommendation is to avoid private accounts unless extremely necessary. The reach limitations will likely stunt your growth. But blocking troublesome individuals as needed makes sense.
As usual, feel free to reach out with any other questions! I‘m always happy to help fellow entrepreneurs boost their Instagram strategy.
