Apple Martin has a private Instagram account. Her mom, Gwyneth Paltrow, has a very public account (with 5.3M followers). “Mom we have discussed this,” Apple commented after Paltrow posted the shot below yesterday. “You may not post anything without my consent.” The actress defended her post, playfully shouting, “You can’t even see your face!”
The post raises some interesting issues. General respect for each other’s privacy. And the logic and motivation of a private Instagram account. Which leads us to an interesting piece written by Emma Brown at Hootsuite:
Some brands and influencers are starting to change their public Instagram accounts to private, or create new accounts that are private from the get-go. Adding a barrier to fans wanting to follow you might seem like a strange idea, but it’s gaining traction. So, we decided to find out why—and whether it’s something you should consider doing for you brand.
Setting your account to private on Instagram means that only people who follow you can see and engage with your content. Even if you’re using popular hashtags, your posts will still be hidden from those searches. It also means that any non-followers who want to see your content have to submit a follow request. Recently we’ve seen big meme pages, such as Couplesnote (8.2 million followers), switch to private accounts. And brands like Everlane have launched new private accounts.
In an interview with The Atlantic, Reid Hailey, the founder of Doing Things—an agency that manages Instagram pages with a total of over 14 million followers—said that when one of his large accounts was public it was growing at a rate of 10,000 new followers per week. Once he switched the account to private, that number jumped to 100,000—an impressive increase. Hailey sees it as a way around Instagram’s algorithm change and stagnating follower counts.
“If you’re public, people just always see your stuff and they don’t feel the need to follow you,” he told The Atlantic. “It didn’t really become a mainstream thing until the algorithm started hitting hard I would say about six months ago or so. People are hurting for growth. A lot of meme pages aren’t really growing.”
If your brand is considering making the move to a private account, consider these benefits:
The private Instagram account trend could be a result of the broader trend of users and brands moving towards smaller, closed groups. We’ve seen this happen with the rising popularity of Facebook Groups. By limiting the amount of people who can see your posts, you’re suggesting to the audience that you care more about quality content than reach. Followers will also feel the content you share is tailored just for them, as they’re a member of the private space you’ve set up for them.
Why have you put a bouncer on the door to your content? Why is it so exclusive? Why? Tell me! The FOMO is real. Making your Instagram private can help make your current followers feel valued, but also make new followers curious. FOMO might come in handy if you’re launching new products, for example. You’re rewarding your most loyal followers with an exclusive first look, and giving newbies a reason to follow you. Everyone loves to feel that they’re getting a deal or an exclusive look.
As mentioned earlier in this article, by going private people have to follow you to find out what kind of content you’re posting. Brands have struggled to see their follower numbers rise since Instagram’s algorithm change, so going private serves as a way to navigate those updates.
There’s a reason this private Instagram account trend has been picked up by meme accounts. They know their content is highly shareable between friends. By going private, any time one of their followers shares a post with a non-follower, that non-follower will be enticed to follow the account in order to see the content their friend shared with them.
Just like having to request to follow you, there’s also an extra notification that pops up if a fan tries to unfollow you. Unlike a public page, where it’s a one-click button to unfollow someone, private pages ask fans if they’re really sure that they want to unfollow you. This little extra step could potentially have an influence on your retention rates when it comes to follower numbers, making people think twice before unfollowing you.
This might seem like a strange argument, but bear with me. By going private you can cultivate the kind of followers and fans you want to have as a brand. Social for brands should be about genuine connections and offering value to your audience. Social media by its very definition is public—but fans might not be willing to give honest feedback or share a connection with you as a brand in those open spaces. By having a small, private space, you can give your brand the room and control it needs to facilitate those genuine connections and offer value to fans on that 1:1 level. Plus you can weed out and ban any trolls immediately.
So we’ve told you the reasons you should consider taking your Instagram account private as a brand, but what are the catches?
You have to switch your business account back to a personal one in order to make it private. This means you lose analytics and the ability to run Instagram ads and promoted content. It’s especially telling that Instagram don’t allow business accounts to be private—suggesting it’s not a trend that they want to promote. It could also mean that Instagram might penalize accounts they deem are ‘gaming’ the system by switching their accounts private. This is probably the biggest downside to switching your profile to private.
People have no reason to follow you beyond a FOMO factor—and you run the risk of annoying people by hiding your content behind a follow request. This is especially true if you give someone access to your account, only for them to find out your content isn’t what they were looking for. Some people might feel duped into following you, which could result in a longer-term dislike of your brand.
As mentioned before, even if you use hashtags on a private account, your content will not show up in public feeds, including the Explore page. You also won’t be able to embed your content on a website, or link to it either. All this can have a dramatic effect on your brand’s ability to increase exposure to potential new fans and customers.
Turning private could be used as a short-term strategy (for example, when you’re launching a new product) to help build excitement and exclusivity. It could also work long-term if you’re a smaller, niche brand with a following that you want to cultivate into a community, or a meme account that thrives on FOMO. But for the vast majority of brands, social media should be a place to be discovered by a new audience. You can miss out on new and enthusiastic fans, and potentially annoy those who are looking for you. Which is a lose-lose for everyone.