How to Remove Followers on Instagram & Clean Up your Account
You’re looking at your Instagram profile and you’re impressed by your high follower count. Should you be satisfied? Look at your followers first and see if all of them are real and active Instagram users. When you see bad bots, inactive accounts, fake accounts, and other followers that bring your Instagram profile down, you should consider doing a clean up.
Having fake followers can also negatively affect your engagement rate. Let’s say you have 15,000 followers, but your average engagement (likes and comments) is at 100. That translates to an engagement rate of 1.33%, which is very low compared to the average engagement rate of non-influencer accounts which is 3%.
Your engagement rate matters more than your sub count.
I don't care how many subs you have. It's all about how engaged your subs are. How many of them care. Brands are waking up to this too.
Before you do a mass unfollow though, remember that Instagram only allows users to unfollow 200 accounts per hour. More than that, and Instagram might detect that you’re using a proxy or something and might shadowban your account. To be on the safe side, just unfollow 100 to 150 accounts per hour.
You can remove followers one by one directly on Instagram itself, which is tedious as hell! Fortunately, there are third-party apps that can help you do this. Below are a few of these apps.
Remove followers: Cleaner for Instagram
Cleaner for Instagram was developed by Robert Paul Neagu and copyrighted by Novasoft. It is available for Android and iOS, and is free on both platforms. However, a lot of customers are saying that you need the paid version to be able to use most of the features below:
Mass unfollow
Mass block and unblock
Mass delete posts
Mass download posts for backup
Mass unlike posts
Pending Actions Service
Whitelist Manager
Support for filters, multiple accounts
Activity log with undo option
The app’s basic version only allows you to perform most of these actions for 30 to 50 items at a time. This is why several users decided to purchase either the pro version, or the cloud upgrade in order to do more at a time. Its Android version is rated 3.4 out of 5 with 5,833 ratings, while it’s rated 4 out of 5 with 2,800 ratings on iOS.
Cleaner for Instagram takes into account the maximum set by Instagram in performing actions such as follow, unfollow, like, unlike, block, and unblock. When you select more than the allowable number of items (e.g. more than 200 accounts to unfollow), the app automatically processes only the allowable number and puts the rest in a queue.
Remove followers: Follow Cop
Follow Cop is a free, ad-supported app that allows Instagram users to mass unfollow other accounts (among other features) using Instagram’s API. The app was designed with Google’s Material Design as the inspiration, and the result is a modern yet classic interface.
Aside from the ability to do mass unfollow, Follow Cop has the following features:
Show non-followers or those you follow but don’t follow you back
Global shoutout which gives you the opportunity to be known worldwide on Instagram.
Multi account support (up to 3 Instagram accounts)
Show fans or those who follow you but you didn’t follow back
Filter lists to find fake followers, fake following, mutual followers, etc.
Follow Cop’s mass unfollow feature allows users to unfollow up to 20 people at a time. There’s no cost when you unfollow more than 20 people, but keep in mind Instagram’s limits. The app is available on Android only, and most users gave it a positive feedback with a rating of 4.4 out of 5 and 89,495 ratings.
Remove followers: SpamGuard
SpamGuard is an online, cloud-based service that helps clean up your Instagram account. Since it is online, you don’t have to install any apps and anyone can use it, whether you’re on an Android or iOS device. SpamGuard also has an anti-spam monitor that allows users to block unwanted activities on their Instagram accounts.
SpamGuard’s features include the following:
Cloud service
Fast cleaner
Multiple accounts
Mobile-friendly
White list
Daily reports
You can use SpamGuard for free to test it. With the free version, you’ll be able to analyze 30% of your followers and follows, and you can remove up to 1,000 followers. If you want to take advantage of the full version, you can go for the one-time clean up or a monthly subscription. Prices depend on the size of your account. For an account with 454,000 followers, for instance, the one-time clean up fee is $45.48 and the monthly subscription fee is $22.74 per month.
Remove followers: Followers Assistant
Followers Assistant’s main claim to fame is that it immediately lets you know when someone unfollows you on Instagram. It also allows you to mass unfollow. Aside from these features, Followers Assistant also enables users to:
Check the latest comments
Save hashtag templates
Manage whitelists
The app is developed by Benjamin Bauer, and is available only for Android. There is a Followers Assistant app on iTunes also, but it is developed by another person.
The video shows how simple Followers Assistant is, and users apparently love it because they rated it 4.7 out 5 on Google Play, with a total of 40,989 user feedbacks.
Remove followers: My Ghost Followers
My Ghost Followers can monitor the actions of your followers and report to you which ones do not interact with your Instagram account. The app also features an account analytics tool that can make you understand your account more. Its other features are:
Easy log in
Check profiles of ghost followers
Share with friends
My Ghost Followers is available only for iOS devices, and it has a rating of 1.8 out of 5 on iTunes.
Most of the users complained that they have to pay in order to see the ghost followers that the app promised to find on their Instagram account.
Cleaning up your Instagram account is necessary
It may take time and effort, but cleaning up your Instagram account is necessary in order to make your profile look more reliable. This is especially true for accounts who are still trying to grow on Instagram. You need to get rid of obviously bad accounts and spammers that are following you, not only so your Instagram account will look good, or to increase your engagement rate, but also to avoid being scolded by Instagram itself.
Go ahead and start cleaning up your Instagram account using any of the apps we mentioned. Do it regularly too since bad accounts can somehow find their way to your Instagram account whether you intended them to or not.
