Types of Instagram Followers Apps on Android and iOS You Should Stay Away From

There are plenty of Instagram followers apps that promise to grow your following quickly, easily, and sometimes even by a specific amount. Unfortunately, most of these apps are not as good as they seem. And they can come with consequences. At best, maybe a loss of fake followers, at worst you might encounter some security issues, and no one wants to deal with those. Instagram itself might even get involved, as they’ve been cracking down on fake followers.

It makes sense though. Instagram is an app built for authentic engagement and interaction. They don’t want people to be filling their follower count with people who don’t care about them, nor do they want people following accounts they don’t actually like. This is part of the reason they’re testing taking away the ability to see the number of likes on a photo. They’d rather have their users focusing on enjoying their time on the app, than stressing about which photo and filter will make the biggest impact with their following.

Did you know there are actually different types of Instagram followers apps? Not all are created equal. Here at Kicksta, we’ve discovered the three main types of apps that you should avoid when you’re wanting to get more Instagram followers – especially those who will actually engage with you and hopefully convert.

1. Misleading Apps

The first type of Instagram followers apps are fairly self-explanatory. These apps promise one thing in the title and then don’t deliver on that promise. Some of these apps will provide you with hashtags, others will give you stickers and frames, but what they won’t do is grow your following right away. 

These apps that help you get Instagram followers have names like Get More Followers for Free, which would suggest that they’d have a way to generate followers and likes for your pages within the app. However, they don’t have a strategy or way to actually help you get followers. Instead, they claim to provide lists of popular tags that you can add to your posts to help generate followers.

Overall, this doesn’t sound like a bad strategy. After all, hashtags are a big part of a successful Instagram marketing strategy. Problems arise though, when it comes to actually using these apps. Some have ratings as low as 2.1 stars in the Google Play store, which should be an indication – they don’t even work. And no, it doesn’t mean that their strategy doesn’t work, it means the apps themselves don’t. Users consistently get stuck on the login screen, and some people even claim their accounts are hacked because of apps like these.

Other Instagram followers apps tell you they’ll help you get more followers, but only give you stickers and frames to apply to your photos and stories. Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as well-designed stories certainly can capture and keep people’s attention. The problem here is that these apps don’t offer a way to bring new users to your content. They need to have an engagement marketing strategy or some other way of getting your content in front of new eyes.

2. Apps that Take Your Password…and Don’t Deliver

Please, please, please do not give your password to any apps like this. They might promise you more likes and followers, but putting your account safety in jeopardy isn’t worth it. After all, if you lose access to your account, what good are all those new followers? Typically though, these apps don’t even work either.

Some Instagram followers apps like this claim to help you increase your follower count by using hashtags. This sounds like a great strategy – identify trending hashtags in your niche, use them and be discovered by new potential followers. Unfortunately, some apps ask users to provide their passwords. Some users have been hacked, as the app has then changed their password without their knowledge, meaning they no longer have access. Other users have been caught in the limbo of having paid for followers but then never seeing the followers come through.

Giving your passwords to sketchy-seeming apps that promise instant growth in likes or followers is never a good idea. Do your research and check reviews of products before you hand over the keys to your Instagram kingdom. 

3. Follow for Follow Apps

Follow for follow is one of the oldest tricks in the Instagram playbook. At its core, it sounds innocent enough and like it might even be a good idea. If people follow one another back, then everyone would benefit, right? Unfortunately, this is one of those strategies that sounds too good to be true.

First of all, some people don’t hold up their end of the bargain. They sign up to be a part of a follow for follow service and then decide not to follow the people who follow them. While users can report them to the app, there’s not much that can be done about this. People will unfortunately lie and let others down sometimes.

Another problem is, even if all goes well and everyone on the list follows you back and you have hundreds of new followers, how will you know that their real followers who actually want to be there? Chances are the people on these lists aren’t your ideal followers and customers. If you’re not generating engaged, real followers who want to follow your story and maybe one day convert to paying customers, you’re just playing into the vanity metric of having a high follower count. They’ll take down your Instagram engagement rate, which can decrease your credibility and hurt your account.

There are plenty of Instagram followers apps that use this method. Their strategy is simple: add your name to the list and then follow back everyone who follows you. But what if there are people on that list who you don’t want to follow? Maybe their accounts don’t interest you at all, or you might suspect that they’re not a real account anyway. If you don’t follow them back, you could be reported and removed from the list, which puts you back where you started.

Overall, follow-for-follow tactics rarely work if you’re looking to get more real Instagram followers. Similarly, follow-unfollow methods don’t work either. At the end of the day, don’t follow an account if you’re not generally interested in the things they post. They’ll just clog up your feed with posts you don’t care about, and take your time away from finding and interacting with people who could actually grow your brand and increase your engagement.

Increase Followers Organically

Rather than ending this post on a negative note after talking about all the bad Instagram followers apps, here’s a brighter piece of information. Let’s talk for a second about a better way to increase your Instagram following.

The best way to get more Instagram followers is to create organic engagement with people you want to follow you. Like their photos, leave them comments, and just generally take a genuine interest in what they’re posting. Using an Instagram growth service like Kicksta is a way to automate your engagement without using scammy sites that will fill your follower count with users who don’t really care – if they increase your numbers at all.

Automation is a great way to save you time and keep you on track – and not get lost down the rabbit hole of the Discover page. Once you identify ideal followers, Kicksta can get to work liking some of their posts on your behalf – never leaving comments or playing the follow/unfollow game that can hurt your reputation.

So there you have it, three major categories of Instagram followers apps you should avoid when you’re looking to get Instagram followers. You’ve dedicated a lot of effort into creating this platform. Don’t risk it by downloading a potentially scammy app. Instead, focus on engagement marketing strategies, or work with a company that has helped over 10,000 accounts grow their following with real, engaged followers. 

One last piece of advice: don’t focus on your follower number itself. Work on engaging the followers you do have, providing them with great content and building a community with them. Having a small community of raving fans who are ready to convert into customers is far more valuable than having many fake followers who simply inflate your numbers.