If you're an avid Instagram user, understanding your Instagram follower ratio is crucial. It's not just a number; it's a reflection of how popular, selective, and trustworthy your account is on this major social media platform. In this blog post, we'll delve into what an Instagram follow ratio is, its importance, benchmarks for various influence levels, and tips to improve it (especially with the help of Circleboom).
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Understanding Instagram Follow Ratio
Just like your Twitter follow ratio or any other follow ratio on social media, your Instagram follow ratio is also calculated by dividing your followers by the number of accounts you follow. For instance, if you have 10,000 followers and follow 1,000 accounts, your ratio is 10.
Altug Altug
The Instagram follow ratio — the balance between your followers and those you follow — can tell a story about your profile. A higher Instagram follower ratio signifies interest and influence, while a lower follow to follower ratio on Instagram one might suggest desperation or spammy behavior.
Onur Ciddi
Importance of a High Instagram Follow Ratio
Your follower to following ratio on Instagram isn't just a number; it's a key to unlocking higher engagement through boosted reach and impressions. A good Instagram follow ratio may help you in the following ways:
- It can show that you are an expert, a leader, or a trendsetter in your niche and that you have valuable and unique content to offer.
- It can help you rank higher in the Instagram algorithm, which favors accounts with high engagement and relevance. This can increase your chances of being featured on the Explore page, and expose your account to more potential followers.
- You can attract the attention of other influencers, brands, or media outlets, who might want to work with you, feature you, or promote you. This can help you grow your network, your audience, and even your income.
Kevin O. Frank
Maintaining a good Instagram follow ratio is a signal to the Instagram algorithm and potential collaborators that your content is valued and your presence is influential.
Instagram Follower To Following Ratio Benchmarks
There's no definitive 'good' ratio as it varies with goals, niche, number of followers, and content quality, but here's a general guideline:
- Less than 0.5: Almost spammy.
- 0.5 - 1: Suspicious-looking.
- 1 - 2: Mediocre to average.
- 2 - 10: May be a micro-influencer.
- More than 10: A possible celebrity on Instagram.
Aim for an ideal Instagram follower ratio that aligns with your account's or brand's authenticity and audience expectations. To achieve the best follower to following ratio on Instagram, let’s take inspiration from the greats of Instagram and look at some top accounts from different categories.
Instagram Follow Ratio Examples for Personal or Creator Accounts
- @cristiano: 616 M followers, 579 following, ratio: 1 M+
- @selenagomez: 429 M followers, 283 following, ratio: 1.5 M+
- @therock: 395 M followers, 834 following, ratio: 473,000+
- @justinbieber: 292 M followers, 764 following, ratio: 382,000+
- @virat.kohli: 265 M followers, 295 following, ratio: 898,000+
- @kingjames: 159M followers, 438 following, ratio: 363,000+
- @kevinhart4real: 179M followers, 1,060 following, ratio: 168,000+
Instagram Follow Ratio Examples for Branded or Business Accounts
- @instagram: 666 M followers, 85 following, ratio: 7.83 M+
- @nike: 306 M followers, 165 following, ratio: 1.85 M+
- @natgeo: 283 M followers, 155 following, ratio: 1.82 M+
- @realmadrid: 150M followers, 51 following, ratio: 2.94 M+
- @championsleague: 112M followers, 495 following, ratio: 226,000+
- @nasa: 96.9 M followers, 77 following, ratio: 1.25 M+
- @circleboomcom: 7,500+ followers, 166 following, ratio: 45.25
These examples show a common trend: higher follower counts generally mean a higher Instagram follower ratio. However, your niche and strategy can also influence your ideal Instagram follower ratio.
Kevin O. Frank
Tips on Having a High Instagram Follow Ratio
Elevating your Instagram follower to following ratio involves strategic planning. To improve your Instagram follow ratio;
- Focus on high-quality, engaging content that attracts and retains your audience,
- Be consistent and timely while posting,
- Interact regularly with your followers,
- Optimize your profile with a great profile picture and a compelling bio,
- Diversify your content, including panoramic posts, stories, and reels,
- Have an attractive puzzle feed to keep users in your profile for a longer time,
- Use hashtags wisely,
- Consider collaborations and other platforms to expand your reach, and
- Regularly analyze your performance to adapt your strategy.
There are, of course, some external things to improve your Instagram follower ratio too. If you are looking for a case example, you can check our blog post on "how to make a restaurant more Instagrammable".
Too much work? Good thing that Circleboom is here to help you with most of these.
A Good Instagram Follow Ratio is Easy to Achieve if You Have Circleboom!
"How?", you may ask. Let's talk a bit more about it then.
- High-quality content? No worries. The built-in ChatGPT-4 of Circleboom Publish helps you generate captions with the power of AI. And no, you don't have to pay an extra $20 per month for it.
- Appealing visuals? Circleboom saves you time and energy here with its Canva integration which also comes with ready-made post templates.
- Driving high engagements? Good thing that Circleboom gives you the best times to post on Instagram as a built-in feature within the scheduler. That's what will help you get the most out of your content in terms of reaching out to the most of your audience.
- Post diversity? Circleboom does not only help you with single-image posts but it also allows you to work on stories, reels, and carousels as panoramic posts.
- Support from other platforms? You can post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and even on your Google Business Profile, all on one dashboard with Circleboom. This will contribute to your branding and indirectly help you gain followers.
- Boosters? Hashtag generator, panorama maker, and grid poster (both for 3x3 and 3x4 grids) are all offered by Circleboom so that you can boost your Instagram posts and profile to attract more and more followers!
On top of these, it suits every level of needs with different pricing options, from a single content creator with a few social media accounts, to an agency or a corporation that has to manage dozens of accounts at once.
All are offered in one dashboard, and all are free to try for 14 days!
Bonus: Average Like to Follower Ratio on Instagram
The like to follower ratio on Instagram is equally telling. A good like to follower ratio on Instagram denotes engaging content that resonates with your audience.
It's calculated similarly to the follower ratio, by dividing your average likes per post by the number of your followers. And, like the follower ratio, there's no "one-size-fits-all" good like to follower ratio, but here are some benchmarks:
- Less than 0.01: The ghost town. Not even an average of 1 likes coming from 100 followers.
- 0.01 - 0.03: The low engagement zone with 1 to 3 likes per 100 followers.
- 0.03 - 0.06: The average engagement range.
- 0.06 - 0.1: The high engagement spectrum.
- More than 0.1: The viral engagement milestone. 10 likes for every 100 followers on average.
Track your Instagram like to follower ratio diligently to understand your audience's preferences and tailor your content accordingly.
Conclusion
Your Instagram follower to following ratio and like to follower ratio are key indicators of your social media success. They reflect your account's popularity, trustworthiness, and engagement.
Remember, these are guidelines, not strict rules. Focus on creating quality content and engaging with your audience to naturally improve these ratios. And always remember that Circleboom is there for you to help!
