In the tech-dominated era, the majority of us love posting things about ourselves on social media. Though social media is a fling, privacy also plays a crucial role. Almost all social media platforms offer many privacy settings. Furthermore, only a few people know about privacy settings. When it comes to posting every detail on Instagram, have you ever thought about how much information you are giving?
Instagram plays a major role in creating marketing strategies for social media. You can enjoy posting on social media when you are comfortable sharing your details with your known circle, as most of us wish to upload anything publicly. As Instagram is all about videos and photos, it is essential to know some privacy settings.
Private Profile – It is one of the most popular privacy settings used by the majority of Instagram users. Generally, by default, all Instagram accounts are public that indicates anyone from any part of the world can visit your profile like and comment on uploads. Fortunately, Instagram also has a feature to make your profile private. The best part about having an individual profile is that only your followers can view your photos or stories, and you can still see the public profiles. If you want to make your profile private, you have to follow these steps:
- You have first to visit the Instagram app and go to the profile page and then tap on the icon having three dots at the top right corner of the screen if you have an android device. For iPhone users, you can tap on the gear icon.
- After that, under the Instagram Privacy Settings, turn your account private by tapping the private account icon.
Remove a follower – Confused about How to protect your privacy on Instagram? You don’t need to stress as after making your account private, you can remove a follower from your list that you don’t want. Though previously, people had only one option to block users, now, thanks to the update, you can remove a follower directly by just manually tapping an icon. It’s a safe bet to remove a follower because he or she won’t be notified about it. You can remove followers even if you don’t have a private profile. To remove followers, you need to do the following:
- You can see the followers once you visit the profile page.
- You can see a three-dot icon adjacent to a follower, so you should tap on the follower you want to remove.
Turn off the green dot and activity status – Recently, the social media app had launched a fascinating feature that shows the activity status of a user. Ideally, it indicates the last time a user was active with whom he or she had a conversation with. So, it seems like that wasn’t all as the app has also got a new feature after the update? This shows if a user is online, you get to see a green dot next to their name in the DM box. One more thing, if you are seriously concerned about How to Adjust Your Instagram Privacy Settings? It would be best if you didn’t worry at all as here are some steps to turn them off:
- You have to visit your profile page and tap the gear icon or three dots on the extreme right.
- When you scroll down and tap on the activity status icon, you will be directed to another page where you can disable the activity status. It will turn off both the green dot, and the activity status will also be not seen.
- Block comments – When you share a video or photo on Instagram, everyone doesn’t need to like it. Sometimes if a follower doesn’t appreciate your post, he or she might troll in the comment section. If you want to stop such nasty comments from your followers, Instagram offers you the option to turn off the comments. You can turn off the comments for both general posts and an individual post. Here is a guide to the Instagram privacy setting: You have a tap on the gear icon or the three dots on your profile to visit the settings.
- Tap on comment controls under the settings; then, you will be left with two options: allow comments from and block comments.
You can choose to allow comments from making the remarks visible and white-filter them, which indicate only a few followers you approve to comment will be able to say. In contrast, when you block some followers, they won’t be able to comment on uploads.
Also, read these brand awareness strategies for your business to grow.
Cease direct messages – Irrespective of whether a person follows you or not, he or she can message you on Instagram. Furthermore, these messages are kept separate as requests, unlike standard messages in DM. Though Instagram doesn’t provide users with any feature to block DM’s, you can surely limit stories for DM. How to Change Your Privacy Settings on Instagram? Some of the options given by Instagram include:
- By tapping the gear icon or three dots icon, you can open the settings on Instagram.
- After getting directed on the settings page, you have to click on story controls and select the preferred option under Allow message replies.
Disable re-sharing post to stories – Your followers can re-share your photo or video on their profile with your username provided you have a public profile. While few people don’t mind their followers sharing their posts, but some don’t appreciate this feature, so Instagram offers an option to turn it off if you aren’t happy about the re-sharing job to stories. To disable re-sharing of photos, one should do the following:
- By tapping on the gear icon or three dots, you can open the Instagram settings.
- After scrolling down the settings, you can hit re-sharing to stories, and then you will be directed to the next screen where you can disable the feature.
Hide story – There are separate privacy settings offered for both posts and stories. However, you cannot customize the privacy of post settings but can alter the privacy of the story settings. Thus you can hide your story from specific followers. Managing Your Instagram Privacy Settings is easy by following specific steps, including:
- After going on Instagram’s setting, you have to click on the story control icon.
- Post clicking on the story control icon, you have to choose the followers you want to hide your story.
Approve tagged posts – Instagram maintains a separate section for both tagged photos and videos. Whether a follower or a stranger tags you, the post will be automatically seen in your profile as all of us are aware that not all tagged pictures are good, so it is essential to approve those pictures before adding them to your profile. You can enable this setting by doing the following:
- Click on the Settings icon and tap on the section photos of you.
- You can disable the option of add automatically to the profile.
Clear search history – When you search for a person now and then, it will also appear under their search screen. You can remove such results by clearing the search history. To clean the search history, you need to open the Instagram settings under which you have to tap on the search history and then clear it. Sometimes previous searches are still seen despite cleaning the search history.
Why do you need to know about Privacy Settings?
Most of us are highly obsessed with social media that we almost ignore the privacy settings at times. At an average, an individual spends around 2 hours a day on social media. Thus having the right privacy settings ensures that your details aren’t exposed to a stranger who can misuse them as when you make your information public, many hackers are waiting out there to profit from it.
Once hackers get any information regarding mail id or contact number, then in no time they access your bank accounts. Additionally, there are several cases where you can get social media threats also. Precaution is always better than cure, so use social media cautiously without neglecting privacy settings.
Moving Forward
So it would be best if you always looked out for privacy updates as, like all social media platforms, Instagram makes changes to its app after some time. It won’t be surprising to know if Instagram Parental Controls are also added. Thus privacy plays a crucial role in a social media platform as you can limit access to personal information on a level that is comfortable for you. Instagram hacks for business marketing strategies can give a boost to your visibility. You can read this guide on marketing using Instagram hacks for business.
