Is your Instagram account in need of a good spring cleaning? Over time, our feeds can get cluttered with inactive ghost followers, accounts we followed on a whim and never engaged with again, and posts that are off-brand or irrelevant to our current style and focus. Cleaning up and curating your Instagram presence is an important habit to cultivate in 2024 – and the benefits go beyond just a more visually appealing profile.
Regularly auditing who you follow and who follows you can significantly boost your engagement rates, foster a more tight-knit community, and even help your content perform better in Instagram‘s algorithm. While it may feel good to see that follower count climb, the truth is that quality trumps quantity every time on this platform. 100 highly engaged followers are far more valuable than 10K that never like or comment on your posts.
So how do you go about decluttering your account the right way? Here are the top strategies to clean up your Instagram followers and feed for maximum impact and results:
- Use Instagram‘s "Least Interacted With" feature
One of the most helpful tools for identifying inactive followers is Instagram‘s "Least Interacted With" list. Added in 2024, this feature shows you the accounts you‘ve had the least interaction with over the last 90 days. These are likely accounts that are no longer active, don‘t post content relevant to you, or that you followed out of obligation/before you zeroed in on your current niche.
To access this list, go to your profile, tap "Following", then tap "Least Interacted With". You can easily unfollow accounts right from this menu. Even better, Instagram allows you to unfollow up to 200 accounts per day from here without risking an "action block" (their mechanism to prevent spammy mass unfollowing behavior). Take advantage of this limit by unfollowing 50-100 inactive accounts every few days until your list is cleaned up.
- Identify and remove fake/bot followers
Instagram has cracked down on fake followers in recent years, but these spam accounts can still slip through and latch onto your profile, dragging down your engagement rates. Analyze your follower list and look for signs of fakery:
- Accounts with no profile photo, a generic bio, and few/spammy posts
- Nonsensical usernames with lots of numbers/special characters
- Following many accounts but with very few followers themselves
- Frequent generic/emoji comments like "Great post!" "🔥" on many different accounts
If you spot suspicious accounts, don‘t engage with them or click any links. Simply remove them as a follower or block them to keep your account secure and authentic. Third-party tools like HypeAuditor and Social Blade can also help you get a quick analysis of what percent of your followers seem suspicious or inactive.
- Do a relevance check on who you‘re following
Our interests and goals on Instagram often evolve over time. Scroll through the list of who you‘re following and ask yourself:
- Is this account still posting content that is interesting and relevant to me?
- When was the last time I engaged with their posts?
- Does following this account support my current Instagram focus and objectives?
It‘s natural for your perspective to shift, and it‘s okay to unfollow accounts that no longer align or provide value. In particular, keep an eye out for:
- Accounts you followed very early on that don‘t match your current niche/industry
- Profiles you followed during a past phase of life or interest that has now changed
- People you met briefly/added out of politeness but don‘t have an ongoing connection with
- Brands/businesses you no longer patronize or support
- News/content sources you don‘t actually engage with or find trustworthy
Be ruthless in eliminating any follows that don‘t make sense for you now. Remember, a streamlined feed means you‘ll see more of the content you care about and engage with more easily.
- Check your follower to following ratio
While there‘s no "perfect" follower to following ratio, having a huge imbalance where you follow far more than follow you can be a red flag to potential new followers that you‘re not posting quality content. Aim to keep your following numbers under 10-20% higher than your followers at a maximum (so if you have 1,000 followers, following 1,200 max).
If your ratio is seriously skewed, with you following thousands more than follow back, it‘s time to pare down that following list significantly using the relevance check in point #3 along with Instagram‘s "Least Interacted With". Shoot to get to a 1:1 ratio or as close to it as you can. A balanced ratio signals that you‘re here to build real community, not just accrue clout.
- Archive old off-brand posts
In addition to who shows up in your feed, it‘s also important that what shows up on your feed is visually cohesive and aligned with your current branding and aesthetic. You‘ve probably evolved your content style and focus over time – that‘s normal and good! But it may mean that some of your old posts now stick out like a sore thumb.
Rather than deleting old posts entirely, use Instagram‘s Archive feature to hide select posts from your feed without losing the post data, likes and comments entirely. Simply tap the "…" in the top right of the post and click "Archive". You can still access all archived posts via the Archive section on your profile, and you can choose to show or re-hide these posts any time.
Go through your feed chronologically and archive any posts that:
- Have noticeably lower visual quality/editing than your current standard
- Showcase old logos, links, profile handles, etc that are no longer active
- Discuss topics/services/life events that aren‘t core to your brand now
- Have an overall vibe or aesthetic that clashes with your brand today
Archiving strategically will make your feed a cohesive, professional front page for your current self and offers. New visitors should be able to tell within seconds what you‘re about now.
- Develop a cleaning schedule
Like any important habit, maintaining a quality-focused Instagram presence gets a lot easier when you make it a regular part of your workflow. Set a recurring calendar event to do a quick audit of your followers and feed every month. It doesn‘t have to be a huge time-consuming project – even 20 minutes of unfollowing inactive/irrelevant accounts and archiving a few off-brand posts can make a big difference.
As you integrate this system into your normal posting flow, you‘ll likely notice that you start to be more proactive about following/engaging only with accounts that are truly valuable to you, and sharing only posts that tell a cohesive visual story and deliver on-brand value to your followers. More intention, less clutter – on both sides of the Instagram equation.
Cleaning up your Instagram account can feel daunting at first, but the positive impacts on your engagement, community and even content performance make it so worthwhile. By removing fake and inactive followers, curating who you follow intentionally, keeping your numbers balanced, and streamlining your feed, you set yourself up to get more eyes on your great content and build real relationships with followers who are excited about what you have to offer.
Ready to get your Insta spick and span for 2024? Start with these 5 steps:
- Use "Least Interacted With" to mass unfollow inactive accounts
- Analyze and remove any suspected fake/bot followers
- Scroll your following list and unfollow any irrelevant accounts
- Check your follower:following ratio and aim for 1:1
- Archive older posts that clash with your current brand style and story
Then, schedule a regular 20-minute clean-up session each month to stay fresh and focused on authentic engagement. Your community and content will thank you – it‘s amazing what a little virtual spring cleaning can do to revitalize your Instagram presence and potential. Here‘s to a lighter, brighter and more intentional feed!
