Following limit on Instagram for May 2020
If you were to ask me what the following limit on Instagram two years ago, I would tell you 300-400 people per day CONSERVATIVELY. If you were to ask what the following limit on Instagram for May 2020 was, I would reply with 20-30 people per day if you are using a service that uses automation.
It is amazing what such a short time can do regarding how many actions Instagram lets you do per day.
New key additions by Instagram to regulate follower growth and the following limit Instagram:
1) Instagram brought on a new security team.
Long ago when Instagram was still in its “growth” stage, they did not care how people grew their pages. It did not matter how quickly they grew organically, as long as they grew. We are seeing this today with TikTok. People going viral for practically nothing and at the drop of a dime. Why does this happen?
Platforms need people to gain followers and engagement. This way they can become hooked on the platform and their newfound “clout”. Once the platform reaches next level numbers in terms of platform user base, they switch their algorithms to promote slower organic growth and reach to force influencers and businesses to spend money paying for ads.
You cannot allow your page to go from gaining 1000 followers a day and getting 10K likes per post to only receiving 50% of that in a day or weeks’ time. What do you do?
Fork over money to the platform. Instagram realized that people were taking shortcuts by using bots, software’s, and apps. They were being used to gain followers inorganically and without paying to boost your post or run ads. Therefore, they hired a new security team. A staff of thousands brought on to focus on one thing… shutting these businesses down.
2) The new security staff implemented new metrics
Security staff implemented these metrics and AI to be able to track and regulate IP addresses to make sure you did not have IPs logging in from bizarre combinations. For example, if your IP address pinged from Chicago but 30 minutes later pinged from Los Angeles, this would cause suspicion at Instagram.
Now if based out of Chicago, but were traveling to Los Angeles briefly, this pinging will not be as severe. The red flags will be addressed if there was a lot of pinging back and forth simultaneously. This would be suspicious of bot activity. See our recent blog about being temporarily blocked on Instagram where we go more in depth.
3) Mouse Tracking | It Effects the Following Limit on Instagram
No, they are not tracking a mouse with a tail but your computer mouse.
If you sign up for a software that grows your account using a bot and not a real human, Instagram will know because they can track your mouse movements per the action taken. Think about it this way - when you go to follow someone manually from your computer (all bots emulate a desktop view of the Instagram platform), you move your mouse to the search bar, type in the username and drag your mouse to the follow button before ultimately clicking “Follow.”
When you use a software, the bot is doing the same exact actions however there is no mouse drag. It is just “click, click, click” until the follow action is completed. This is the most detrimental addition made by Instagram severely reducing the following limit on Instagram for May 2020.
How Can I Grow Despite the New Following Limit On Instagram?
Even with these additions, there are still many ways to grow your Instagram with many Instagram management techniques. Not all the growth needs to be manual either.
I will save this insight for another blog, however one take away that I have found by testing both bot services and running things manually myself or hiring people to manually run accounts for me, you can do 10x or even 20x the daily actions manually compared to a bot.
In other words, if a bot can do 30 follows a day, manually you can do 200-300. It is a no brainer with these numbers to take the time to either find a way to run your Instagram manually or hire someone who can do this for you.
I have spent the last 7 years managing social media accounts big, small, business and personal in nature, and the following limit on Instagram for May 2020 is by far the most strict and lowest. I think it will stay this way as well because Instagram has become strict on not having what happened to Twitter.
Twitter became overrun with bots and automated fake accounts which really hurt their platform. Now that Twitter has made a comeback (big time), Instagram will absolutely make sure they do not share the same early fate.
Hope this blog helped clear up some concerns and spread some value! If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email at admin@spectsocial.com!
Author Chris Costello
Chris Costello: Chris is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder at SpectSocial. Find him on Facebook @chris.costello.92