Rising Creators Forum

I gain like 20-30 followers per week but i'm also losing 15-20 followers per week so my net growth is basically nothing

Is this normal? why do people follow and then unfollow? it's really frustrating to see the number go up and down constantly

I used to obsess over losing followers until i realized it literally doesn't matter

Instagram follower count is a vanity metric. What actually matters:
- engagement rate (likes, comments, saves, shares per post)
- reach to non-followers (are you being discovered?)
- conversion to whatever your goal is (sales, website traffic, etc.)

I've had months where i gained 500 followers but my engagement dropped. and months where i gained 100 followers but my engagement went up. which is better? obviously the second one

people follow for all kinds of random reasons and unfollow for equally random reasons. As long as your engaged follower base is growing, you're fine

also check if you're getting bot followers. if your new followers have no posts, generic usernames, and 0 followers themselves, they're bots and will get purged by instagram eventually. that's not real growth anyway

focus on creating content that resonates with your target audience. the right followers will stay, the wrong ones will leave, and that's exactly what you want

I’m going to be honest: verification is mostly random and 12k followers is probably too low unless you're famous for something else

I've seen people with 50k followers get rejected and people with 8k get approved. there's no clear formula

what seems to help:
- being verified on other platforms first (twitter, facebook)
- being mentioned in news articles or press
- having a wikipedia page (seriously)
- being in a high-authority niche (business, tech, entertainment)

lifestyle/influencer accounts have the hardest time getting verified because there are millions of them. if you're in a more professional niche (finance, medicine, law) it's easier

my advice: don't stress about verification. it's nice to have but it doesn't actually help your growth that much. focus on creating good content and building your audience. verification is a vanity metric that doesn't translate to real business success

I know people with 100k+ followers making six figures who aren't verified. doesn't matter