Is your follower counter going nuts on Instagram? Lost hundreds of followers for no reason? Don’t worry, it’s a system bug and Instagram is working on it.
Ask any marketer and they will tell you that followers are nothing but a vanity metric. In fact, mst people would tell you so. Until they start losing hundreds or thousands overnight, and all will FREAK OUT!
For the past few days, Instagram users have been concerned about their follower counter going nuts. Some lost thousands of followers, before gaining many back. Even the number of people they were following was dropping…
https://twitter.com/ItsSteephh/status/1095515916144541697
why did I just lose over half a million followers @instagram wyd sis
— James Charles (@jamescharles) February 13, 2019
At first people thought that the company was cleaning up its platform, culling inactive and fake accounts by the thousands.
INSTAGRAM FOLLOWER CULL 📉
Last night Instagram removed inactive / bot accounts from all accounts, globally.
I’ve woken up to an inbox full of messages from concerned people / influences and brands who have in some cases, lost millions of followers while they were asleep!🤭😅 pic.twitter.com/ItUXqqmwQT
— Steven Bartlett (@StevenBartlett) February 13, 2019
But, as it happens, it was a bug. Instagram confirmed that an issue has been affecting some accounts’ follower counters.
We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible.
— Instagram (@instagram) February 13, 2019
“We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible,” the company said on Twitter. Instagram also promised that everything should go back to normal within the day.
The Insta-bug happened only a few hours after Twitter had suffered its own issues with the Like count on tweets, which has also been resolved since.
Maybe, just maybe, it is finally time to move away from silly vanity metrics? What do you say?
You might also like
More from Instagram
Instagram Introduces Search Ads Via Its Marketing API
Instagram Search Ads are now available to all advertisers via the Instagram marketing API. Just two months after it began to …
Instagram’s New Twitter Competitor Revealed
Instagram's rumored text-based Twitter competitor still does not have a name, but now we know what it might look like. The …
Instagram Now Lets Everyone Use GIFs In Comments
Instagram is now letting every user comment on posts and Reels with GIFs. I think we can all agree that if …
You Can Now Add Songs To Your Instagram Photo Carousels
Instagram says it is testing a new feature that lets users add songs to the photo carousels they share on …
Instagram Now Lets You Add Up To 5 ‘Links In Bio’
Instagram is rolling out a new feature for adding up to 5 'links in bio' - a feature doomed to …
Instagram Collaborative Collections Are The New Way To Save And Share Content With Your Friends
Instagram is introducing a new 'Save posts with friends' that lets you create a collaborative collection for you and your …
Instagram Is Testing A ‘Top 3’ Sticker To Boost Engagement
According to reports, Instagram is testing a new Top 3 sticker for Stories, allowing users to highlight favorite accounts, places, …