Check for unfollowers on Instagram, the right way
Instagram is a great platform where you can forge relationships, collaborate, present your brand, and gain a true following. It has been around for quite some time and has changed over the years, with people becoming more creative in finding new ways to gain followers and engagement.
The Follow Back Tactic
One example of these creative strategies is the “follow back” tactic. This involves asking someone to follow you, with the promise that you’ll follow them in return. It’s an effective way to gain followers, as both parties benefit by increasing their follower count, which can enhance credibility.
There is a downside to following back. No matter how many followers you have, if the number of accounts you follow exceeds the number of followers you have, it can hurt your credibility. This imbalance suggests that your followers may not be genuinely interested in your content, making your follower count appear superficial and less meaningful.
Trust Issues with Following Back
Following someone back involves trust. Many users will follow you with the intention of getting a follow in return, only to later unfollow you. For simplicity, I will refer to them as “unfollowers.” While it is technically allowed to unfollow someone after gaining their follow, this tactic is not effective in the long run, as it damages your reputation and, in my opinion, is unethical.
Managing Unfollows and Third-Party Apps
But how can you tell if someone unfollows you? Many third-party apps can check this for you, but caution is advised. Although Instagram doesn’t penalize users for unfollowing, they may restrict or even ban your account if you use third-party apps. The key rule is this: when you give an app access to your account outside of the Meta platform, even if they claim they won’t use your account for other activities, it’s best to avoid it.
Preventing Warnings and Restrictions
I often received warnings in the past from Instagram that they suspected my account of automated behavior.
But how can you prevent this? Unfortunately, at the time of writing, there isn’t a native Instagram feature for this. However, there is good news. You will only receive this warning if you exceed the limit of engagements within a specific time frame or if Instagram detects that you’ve given access to your account to a third-party app. As long as you avoid these actions, you should be fine!
The solution
Our goal is to identify a method that lets us view a list of unfollowers without breaking any rules. We also want to eliminate the time-consuming task of manually comparing follower lists.
We’re going to export your Instagram account data and let ChatGPT do all the work.
Export your data
First, export your Instagram data by downloading your personal data.
Click on “More” and “your activity”
Click on “download your information”.
Click on “download or transfer information”.
Select the account and click “next”.
Click on “some of your information”.
Select “followers and following” and click on “next”.
Select “download to device” and click “next”.
Click on “create files”.
Your file will be sent to your inbox shortly.
USe the data
Open both files with your favorite browser, you can find them inside the connections/followers_and_following folder and find the following and followers files, they end with .html.
Copy and paste the two lists in the browsers, then let ChatGPT compare the two lists, the followers and following by copy/pasting the following prompt.
Replace [followers] with the followers and [following] with your following list of the downloaded file.
You can find these in the files you have received from Instagram.
The prompt
I want to see who I’m following (following) but doesn’t follow me back (followers).
I will give you a list of followers, and a list of following.
Compare the two lists, if there’s an instagram handle on the following list, but not on the followers list, I want to know. add those results in a new list.
[following]
[add your following list here]
[followers]
[add your follower list here]
You should now see a list with Instagram handles who don’t follow you back.
Have fun!