If you use Instagram, you may want to log in and check to see just how many followers you currently have. Over the past week, Instagram has performed their largest purge of fake accounts in their history. The move, which has been dubbed the “Instagram Rapture” has hit many popular accounts as well as millions of the smaller individual accounts.
For example, Justin Bieber lost 5 million followers, which translates to about 15% of his total number.
The social network announced that it was coming early last week as they had commented that they were going to be stepping up their battle against spammy accounts. Many of the accounts that were removed from their system were already deactivated, but left up and counted as followers.
The company post concerning this purge said, “When we remove accounts from Instagram that don’t follow our Community Guidelines, you may see a decrease in your follower count. This shouldn’t affect engagement from authentic accounts that like and comment on your posts.”
Many people might be disappointed at the move, since many marketers, celebrities and others use their follower count when negotiating sponsored posts. They may get paid a set amount per follower they have to make a post about a particular product, for example.
On the other hand, it could be seen as a good thing as marketers will now be able to know exactly how many followers they actually have.
An interesting thing about this purge, which did surprise many, is that major brands lost only a small percentage of their users. Nike lost just 2.8% of their total followers, and Forever21 lost 4.3%. This is a good indication that major brand names have built up their accounts using only legitimate tactics. Clearly they are now reaping the benefits of their previous efforts.
So, if you use Instagram for your marketing, check out your follower count. Have you lost a lot followers? Comment below to help everyone gauge the overall impact.
