Having a private account is better if you want to have control over your profile and don’t want people with malicious intent to steal your content, know where you are, who your friends are, where you live, where you work, etc. Simply put, non-followers can’t stalk you! You will see a small dot under the heart icon and a bubble over it if someone liked or commented on your posts and if someone sent you a follow request. And you will be notified about that, too, if the push notification is turned on. Let’s talk about how to accept a follow request on Instagram in more detail.
How To Accept Follow Requests on Instagram
Accepting a follow request on Instagram takes just a few seconds. To do that: Most likely, you will also see your follower requests under your account’s “Recent Activity” that you can also access by tapping the heart icon. If you see the follow request there, you can accept it without going to “Follow Requests” by simply tapping the “Confirm” button next to the user. Note that you can also deny requests if you think that’s the best thing to do. Simply tap the “Delete” button or the “x” mark next to the “Confirm” button if you don’t want them to have access to your account. If you don’t want them to send a follow request again, you can block them.
How To Make Your Instagram Account Private
So you currently have a public account, and you want to make it private, so you can choose who can follow you. Changing your account privacy on Instagram is easy. You can do that in the Instagram app or the desktop site via https://www.instagram.com. Here are the steps to follow: If you want to confirm whether your account has been successfully set to private, access your profile on an Incognito browser via https://www.instagram.com/yourusername. Your Instagram posts will show up if it’s still public. If it is private, you should see, “This account is private. Follow this account to see their photos and videos”.
Conclusion
Only personal accounts can be set to private. Brand and creator accounts aren’t allowed to do that because switching your account type to a brand or creator account means that you are looking to promote on the platform, and you need the public to be successful at that. You won’t be able to reach a wider audience if you are limiting yourself to only your followers. A private account apparently has limitations. For one, you can’t embed your post or profile if you want to share it with people outside Instagram. You only can send them a link to your profile or share your username with them, and you can only send a screenshot of your Instagram post or send them a copy of the photo or video you uploaded if you want to show them your post. Hashtags will also not work because the post won’t show up on the feed of those who aren’t following you. The case is the same for locations. But a private Instagram account has pros, too. Your profile is more secure and you don’t need to worry about being watched by people who are unwelcome and have bad intentions. You can share whatever you want and post to your Instagram Stories in real time without worrying about your safety provided that your followers are people you know are genuine.
