Friends, let’s talk about 3 valuable lessons I learned from Instagram Follow loops and gaining 2,354 followers.
I ran an experiment on my own Instagram account. Over four weeks I joined about sixteen follow loops and gained 2,354 followers.
Then I watched what those followers did.
Almost nothing. That’s the short version. Here’s the long one, because the details are more interesting than the headline — and because I think a lot of people are about to spend a month of their lives the way I spent mine.
THE INSTAGRAM JUNGLE
If you have tried to grow an account lately, you already know the feeling. You follow the advice. You engage until your thumbs ache. You like things on the explore page because someone told you the algorithm rewards it. And the numbers move like a glacier.
It is discouraging. It is meant to be discouraging — an attention economy works best when you never feel finished.
So instead of complaining about it, I decided to test the most popular shortcut and report back honestly.
WHAT ARE INSTAGRAM LOOPS
A follow loop is a group of accounts that all post the same image, with the same caption and hashtags, at the same time, for the sole purpose of gaining followers.
Most loops come with rules. Follow the admins to participate. Post at the exact assigned time. Follow every other participant. Leave a specific emoji in the comments so everyone knows you did.
The image circulates for a set window, then comes down.
HOW FOLLOW LOOPS WORK
Follow-for-follow is simple: you follow someone, they follow you back.
A loop scales that up. Everyone posts the assigned photo. Everyone follows everyone. Everyone confirms with the emoji. If two hundred people participate, you can add a few hundred followers in an afternoon.
The mechanics work. That was never in question. The question was what those followers are worth.
The way I joined the very first loop was through an invitation I received via an Instagram message. The additional follow loops were through Instapods (group message on Instagram), Telegram, or Whatsapp. A lot of the times, admins of the follow-loops will invite you to the groups or have them linked via their Instagram profile. In the chats, members of the group have conversations regarding the upcoming loop, what everyone should do during the loop and after the loop, who followed or unfollowed.
HOW TO JOIN A LOOP
My first invitation came through an Instagram DM. After that, the loops found me through Instapods, Telegram, and WhatsApp group chats.
Admins usually recruit directly or link the group from their profile. Inside the chat, members coordinate the next loop, confirm they’ve followed, and — this part surprised me — track who quietly unfollows afterward.
THE NUMBERS
I started with 892 followers.
Between September 3rd and September 30th, participating in roughly sixteen loops, I gained 2,354 followers. I tracked the data with Innovatty’s Instrack app, which I’d already been using for a couple of years.
My engagement, though, stayed flat. It only moved when I joined the engagement pods attached to the loops — and I only did that for three days, to see the contrast.
Followers up. Conversation nowhere.
My accounts engagement only went up when I decided to join the engagement pods associated with the follow-loops. I joined the engagement pods for three days just to show a comparison.
THREE LESSONS I LEARNED
Joining follow-loops sounds simple. You may be thinking ‘sure no harm can be done if I join a follow-loop.’ And to a certain extent, yes, I agree with you. Follow-loops are simple but can they not harm? See that’s where I think you are wrong. Below you will find the reason.
- Follow loops were an effective way to gain followers if followers are all you are after. Then sure, I would say follow-loops are an effective way to gain followers. But the real question you should be asking yourself is ‘how do I want my Instagram account to impact others?’ Sure I gained 2,354 followers, but none of them cared even to read the messages on my posts, which is my way of helping others see different perspectives. And I don’t want followers who don’t care. I want followers who are looking for inspiration to find purpose; which leads me to my next point.
- The followers from follow-loops don’t engage with content. It was as if I had ghost followers. Maybe three people from the follow loops engaged but other than that; it was silent. I was expecting perhaps half to participate, but to my amusement, only a handful liked new posts. It wasn’t until I joined the engagement pods related to the follow loops that I saw an increased engagement. See the photos above. I began the experiment beginning of September and joined the engagement pods in the middle of September, and that is when my engagement went up. Engagement pods are practically the concept of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours;” so, if you don’t like any of the photos in the group than no-one will like yours.
- Follow-loops are time-consuming. And I really mean that. The actual act of joining is simple but staying up to date, following all the guidelines and actually following all the other participants proves the task of participating in a follow-loop extremely time-consuming. And because I was on a different time zone than most of the loops, sometimes I would wake up at midnight or weird hours of the night to post a loop. Then during the loop, I would spend hours on Instagram. Personally, I like being intentional with my time, and Instagram is the last place I want to spend my time on.
In the middle of my experiment, I found myself asking questions like “why do people do this? To get more followers so brands can notice them? Is that really what it narrows down to? Unfortunately, that is the case behind a lot of ‘influencers’ on Instagram. And I can see how some people can easily get pulled into Instagram follow-loops to acquire followers for all the wrong reasons.
OPPORTUNITY COST
If you took economics, you know this one.
Every hour spent on a follow loop is an hour not spent somewhere else. Time with your children. A book. Something you actually made. The cost of a thing isn’t only what you pay — it’s everything you gave up to have it.
I’m not writing this from higher ground. I’ve lost an hour to scrolling more times than I’d like to count. But it’s worth remembering what Instagram actually is: a place to share pictures. That’s the whole thing. It doesn’t deserve the middle of your night.
TAKEAWAYS
I’m out. I don’t intend to join another loop, because I don’t want followers who don’t want me.
Followers matter — they’re people you get to say something to. But a number is only worth what’s behind it. A small room of people who are listening beats a stadium that isn’t.
If you’re weighing whether to try loops, here’s my honest answer: they’ll give you the number. They won’t give you anyone.
What are you actually on Instagram for? I’d like to know — tell me in the comments!
If this saved you a month, share it with someone about to spend one.
Con cariño,
Abril
Love this post. So true.