Making your Instagram Insta…private
Instagram is an app/website for people to capture and share their world’s moments. It’s storytelling with photos for celebrities, musicians, newsrooms, brands, teenagers, just about anyone. Being such a popular social media platform, there are tips to follow to keep yourself as private as possible.
By default, your Instagram account is open to the public for anyone to view your profile, follow you, and like or comment on your posts. When your account is open to the public, you can be found by anyone as your posts can pop up on the “Explore” page of Instagram which can lead to you getting followed by unwanted accounts.
For more security, to keep what you post only open to viewing by people you allow to follow you, you can go to your account settings and set your account to private. This means other users have to request to follow you to see your posts and you have the ability to say no. If you want to leave your account set to public and there are just certain accounts you would like to prevent from following you or liking and commenting on your posts then you can block them.
Alongside to actual posts, Instagram has “Stories” which are able to be seen by those who follow you even when set to private. To prevent specific people from viewing your stories you can hide your story from them by going to your story settings. You can also choose who can reply to your story.
Moreover, Instagram allows you to have a short bio about yourself on your profile. The less you add, the more hidden you are. The most important thing is your name so people you know can find you but don’t add too many details such as your phone number or location.
On that note, Instagram also has location services. The only way to keep this completely private is not to tag your location when posting your photos. If you don’t mind the people who follow you accessing that information, you’re all good. If not then avoid tagging your location unless you have already left the location.
Finally, on your Instagram profile, there is a “Photos of You” page. If other users tag you in a photo, you can decide if you want those posts added to your profile for other people to directly look at from your page or not.
It’s not hard to keep a private Instagram account or a public one that doesn’t expose every aspect of your life. The settings you set for your Instagram account can be easily ordered to aid your personal preferences.
