“Should I close my profile before advertising?”, “Why do bloggers close their accounts?” and “How do I view content and subscribers in private accounts?” – these and many other similar questions constantly come across to me in thematic communities, so I decided to understand the topic.

Private Instagram profiles

In the Instagram application, regular accounts can be made closed and no one except the owner and subscribers of the profile will see its content, subscribers and subscriptions. Business accounts and accounts of authors cannot become closed, for this they need to remove “business”, lose statistics and the opportunity to advertise.

Why do people close their accounts? This is usually done by administrators of entertainment publics, bloggers and ordinary Instagram users. I will analyze the reasons for bloggers and administrators.

More subscribers

According to administrators and ad managers, in closed accounts, the subscriber dynamics graph behaves better, more subscribers and fewer unsubscriptions for the same efforts. If we compare an open account and a closed one, then with the same quality of content and advertising budgets, the audience on the closed one grows better. Let’s figure out why this is so.

Intrigue

Generating curiosity in order to get something is an old publicity stunt. Even in folk tales, witches attracted children, arousing curiosity. Unknown content in any account makes you want to know “what’s there”, and if the account intersects with the interests of the user, then the desire to find out is irresistible and the finger reaches for the “Subscribe” button.

They say it works well with entertainment pubs and cityscapes. Imagine if it’s a combo? A resident of Khabarovsk is sitting. And then his friend in the direct sends a message with a repost from a closed account: “Look what happens!” not? Disorder! I will subscribe! “

Therefore, administrators and bloggers often close a profile before an advertising campaign, hoping that by intriguing the audience, they can get more exhaust. This is especially true for accounts with “low-quality” content.

The advertising campaign is also carried out in such a way as to use curiosity to the fullest. This move was popular in the early 2010s, when the beginning of exciting stories was spread across the public, and in order to find out the continuation, you had to go to a closed wiki page, accessible only to public subscribers. You can’t run such an advertising campaign on VKontakte, network moderators stop it, but on Instagram it’s still possible.

Fewer unsubscriptions

Many SMM specialists assure: “There may be more subscribers, but when they see what kind of content there is, they will unsubscribe later.”

However, this is not quite true. Experienced administrators say that the box that pops up when unsubscribing is “are you sure you want to unsubscribe?” motivates people to stay. By the way, this technique is often used by email marketers who send a message to the unsubscribed with a proposal to return to the mailing list or to re-subscribe to another. They know that retaining and returning a subscriber is easier than attracting a new one.

Avoid cheating

Many bloggers, and sometimes commercial accounts, temporarily close their profiles due to the wave of subscribing bots, since Instagram can block the account due to a sharp and massive boost.

Protect from blocking

Instagram’s advertising policy assumes that a blogger who advertises for any brand will flag it as “sponsored content” if there is an advertisement. And if there is no tagging, for Instagram this is an excuse to remove content due to the use of a trademark.

In 2019, many bloggers had such “illegal” advertising content removed. It is believed that it is more difficult to get under the attention of Instagram algorithms from a closed account. This is the reason why the myth of “curing the shadow ban” with closure has spread.

Chosenness

Sometimes closed accounts are used to create a sense of specialty. This works great with city accounts, when a Khabarovsk resident asks the question: “Why 90 thousand citizens are subscribed to this account, but I am not.” This works well with private business clubs that create a private social media account and sell access to it.

Content theft

It is much easier to steal content from an open account and pass it off as your own.

Closed account problems

Only personal accounts can be closed. These accounts have no statistics. They won’t target from the app. The advertiser has to be content with indirect metrics – subscribers, the average number of Stories viewed, the number of comments and likes per post.

Administrators of such accounts have another problem – in addition to their usual duties, they need to constantly approve subscriptions. It’s one thing to accept 10–20 applications, but what to do when there are thousands of them, and moreover, there are several accounts? For such administrators, the SMMplanner service has developed an automatic acceptance of subscriptions, or face control.

Face control?

Holders of pro-tariffs SMMplanner (professional and higher) can set up automatic acceptance of subscriptions to a closed account. To do this, you need to connect a private account to the service and set up auto-acceptance. SMMplanner will accept applications every half hour.

Why are Instagram closed?

• Get more followers by piquing your curiosity.
• Get fewer unsubscriptions due to the desire “not to lose”.
• Protect your account and content.
• Avoid waves of bots that spoil statistics.
• Create a sense of being selected among the audience.

PS Special thanks to Sergey Krasnov and Timofey August for answering the questions “Why are accounts closed?”

Rather register in SMMplanner and try what is described in the article!