How to tell someone is stalking you on instagram


How to Tell if Someone is Stalking You On Instagram

Social media is exactly that, social. If you’re online, you’re in the public eye, and people taking an interest in you is the cost of doing business online. That said, there’s a difference between actively engaging with you, being curious and checking you out, and stalking.

Think someone is stalking you on Instagram? Think someone might have a secret crush on you and is following you online? Want to know if someone is taking a little too much interest in what you do on social media?

This tutorial will show you how to tell if someone is either watching but not engaging or just lurking on your Instagram.

Unfortunately, your options are limited for finding out if someone is constantly viewing your Instagram profile. There isn’t much feedback from the social network about what’s going on, who viewed what, or when someone views your profile. Your only option is Instagram Stories which, like its Snapchat progenitor, tells you who viewed it.

Credit: Instagram.com

Instagram Stories: The Only Way to Know Who’s Watching

Instagram Stories are essentially a copy of Snapchat Stories, and they work in almost the same way. You create a post, set it as a Story, and then it becomes public for 24 hours before it disappears.

You select someone’s profile in the app to see their stories, and they do the same to see yours. Just like Snapchat, Instagram Stories tell you who has viewed your Story.

  • You can swipe up from within one of your own Instagram Stories to see who has viewed it.

The screen shows the username of each person that saw the Story at hand. While not confirmed, some believe that the order in which names appear indicates how often they have viewed it. Of course, Instagram has never confirmed this, but it’s an interesting theory.

Essentially, your first stop should be your Instagram Stories. If you’ve published one of the short clips, you can see who is checking out your content.

Catching the Instagram Stalker

Instagram Stories are the only way to find out who is engaging with your content. Instagram Analytics tells professional account owners how many people watched, but they don’t disclose the account viewing your posts. So, there is one workaround method that we’ve come up with for snuffing out your stalker.

When you post an Instagram Story, you have the option to hide it from others. This situation is different from the “Close Friends” list that alerts users that you’ve shared it with certain people.

Assuming you have a suspicion that someone is stalking your content, post a Story, and hide it from everyone else on your list.

  • Before posting your Story, go to the Instagram Story Settings and select the option to “Hide Story From.” Select everyone but the person of interest. Doing this means they won’t know that they’re the only person who can see the Story.
  • Not only will you see that they viewed it, but if you’re using Instagram Analytics, you can also watch the view count increase each time they do. If they watch the Story multiple times, you’ll know it was them because they’re the only person who has access to it.

Unfortunately, this is the best way we know how to see whether or not someone is actively seeking out your content to watch over and over again. If you don’t have Instagram’s Analytics setup, this will only tell you if they watched it.

Other Ways to Test if Someone is Stalking You on Instagram

Aside from showing who has viewed your Instagram Story, there is no other way to tell what’s happening within the app. Snapchat offers a lot more information on who is doing what, but Instagram does not.

So, if nobody leaves a comment or engages with you in another way, you’re in the dark, or are you?

Using Third-Party Apps to Spot an Instagram Stalker

There are a lot of third-party applications, browser extensions, and websites that promise to show you who is viewing your profile. Many of these do not work, while others require access to your private information for nefarious purposes.

Although there may be some legitimate resources out there, users should beware of the dangers of using such a service. Read the reviews and do your research on the developer before signing up for anything.

Handling Stalking on Instagram

There isn’t much you can do if you think someone is stalking you on Instagram. As long as they aren’t making threats or seriously bothering you in any way, they aren’t doing anything legally wrong. This fact is the price of social media. You’re out there for all to see, and people can do whatever they want with the information you post online.

Changing Instagram Privacy Settings

If your suspicion is getting the better of you, you can change some privacy settings on Instagram to stop the person from following you around on the network.

  1. Launch the Instagram App.
  2. Tap on your profile icon (settings) to open your profile page.
  3. Touch the hamburger icon (menu) in the top-right section.
  4. Select Settings from the menu and then choose Privacy.
  5. Under Account Privacy towards the top, toggle on Private Account.

A Private Account is only visible to people who follow you. People who want to follow you will send a request, which you can accept or deny at your discretion. This setting makes you a lot less visible on Instagram by allowing you to decide who gets to see your profile and posts.

Changing Your Instagram Activity Status

Besides adjusting privacy settings, you can also turn off your activity status to prevent the stalker from viewing your activity.

  1. Open Settings, then Privacy on Instagram.
  2. Select Activity Status and toggle Show Activity Status to off.

The steps above stop anyone from seeing what you’re up to on Instagram, but it also prevents you from seeing other people’s activity status. It’s a two-way street.

Removing Someone from Your Instagram Followers

If you have an idea of who is stalking you, you can remove them as a follower.

  1. Select your Profile on Instagram.
  2. Tap on Followers at the top.
  3. Select the Remove button next to the follower you want to remove.

If you have set your Instagram profile to private, this person will no longer see anything you do on your account, as long as they aren’t a follower. They may still see your comments or likes on other people’s posts, but they will not see anything you post on your own.

Changing Your Instagram Account to Private

A private Instagram account lowers the engagement factor of social media but also offers a little protection. You could try turning your account private for a month or two and then make it public again. Chances are, whoever was stalking you would get bored by then and move on—maybe.

Instagram Privacy FAQs

Here are the answers to more of your questions about taking back control of your privacy on Instagram.

What can I do if someone is making threats on Instagram?

If someone has threatened you via a comment or a direct message, the first thing you should do is take a screenshot. Many professionals recommend that you avoid responding to someone hostile on social media, but capturing an image of the content with their username will help you move forward.

You can report the user to Instagram by clicking on the three-dot menu on their profile or visiting the Instagram support website (this is where the screenshot comes to play. If the threat is severe enough, or you feel it is valid, it’s probably a good idea to contact your local law enforcement authorities.

Is there a way to tell if a fake account is following me?

Some users want to stalk your account anonymously. Perhaps you’ve blocked someone, or you haven’t accepted a follow request from a person you know. Unfortunately, Instagram won’t tell you if an account is fake or who created it. But, you can use deductive reasoning to better spot an illegitimate Instagram account.

The first sign that an Instagram profile is fake is the username. People who make fake profiles for the purpose of stalking may leave clues about who they are in the username, or they won’t put much effort into it. Scroll through your Followers’ list to see which usernames don’t add up.

Another tell-tale sign that an Instagram profile isn’t on the up-and-up is a lack of published posts. While some users don’t interact very much, most will follow other people, have followers, or publish content. A bare-bones Instagram account is undoubtedly suspicious.

Lastly, some Instagram stalkers will create accounts that mimic your friends’ profiles. Look through your Followers’ list for any repetitive accounts. If you have more than one follower who seems to be the same person, one account might be that of a stalker.

Final Thoughts

Instagram can be an excellent app for sharing photos and videos with your friends, family, and followers, but it’s not the best app for those concerned about their online privacy.

As it stands, there’s no genuine way to know if anyone is stalking you on Instagram. So, as you should when using any social media platform, always be mindful of what you post.

How to Know if Someone is Stalking You on Instagram

So you want to know if someone is stalking you on Instagram.

Instagram stalkers are typically defined as people who visits your profile without actually interacting with your posts.

In addition, stalkers are most likely not following you so they are hard to detect.

It’s important to know who your Instagram stalkers are because you might not want some of them spying on your profile.

Hence, this article guides you on how to know if someone is stalking you on Instagram so you won’t be left in the dark.

  • How to know if someone is stalking you on Instagram
  • What is the order of viewers on Instagram story?
  • How does Instagram rank story viewers?
  • How to see your stalkers from your Instagram story viewers

How to know if someone is stalking you on Instagram

To know if someone is stalking you on Instagram, simply post an Instagram story, wait for a couple of hours, then check the users who viewed your story. The people at the top of your viewer list on your stories are your stalkers and top viewers.

Alternatively, you can use an Instagram analytics app.

Checking who viewed your stories is a great way to find people that are stalking you on Instagram. You can also use an Instagram analytics app if you don’t mind paying for it.

Instagram stalkers are typically people that views your Instagram profile without liking or commenting on any of your posts, and are not following you.

So if you want to find out who stalks your Instagram, you need to keep these couple of factors in mind.

Read on to find out how the Instagram story algorithm works and how to use an Instagram analytics app to your advantage.

1. Check who viewed your Instagram story

The first method is to check who viewed your Instagram story.

Fundamentally, Instagram stories allow you to check people who are viewing your profile.

It’s the best way to check you can check stalkers who aren’t following you.

Post a story

First of all, you’ll have to post something to your story; be it a photo or a video.

By doing so, you can check people who are actively viewing/visiting your profile.

Check who viewed your story

After you posted a story, wait for a couple of hours to allow people to stream in.

Then, tap on your story and check who viewed it.

The goal is to find people who viewed your story but aren’t following you.

People who viewed your story but aren’t following you are either “passerbys” or stalkers.

“Passerbys” are people who have stumbled across your profile from other socials, the explore page or another person’s profile.

These people aren’t your stalkers because they’ll most likely visit your profile only once.

Those that are stalking you are the ones who consistently come back to your profile (more than once).

In order to find those those people, you’ll have to post stories on Instagram frequently.

If you’re only going to post one story, you won’t be able to discern between a random person and a stalker.

So, it’s highly recommended that you post once a day for a week to find out people that are actively stalking you.

What is the order of viewers on Instagram story?

To decipher the order of Instagram story views, you’ll need to understand how the algorithm works.

Instagram wants to display the most relevant people that viewed your stories.

Similarly, your stories are being showed to the most relevant people on their timeline.

The order of viewers is determined from two factors.

How much time someone spends watching at your stories, and how often they view it.

For example, immediately after you post a story on Instagram, the order of viewers starts of as chronological.

This means that the people that appear at the top of your list are the most recent viewers.

When there are enough people that viewed your stories, the algorithm will change the order of the list.

The order of your viewers from an Instagram story starts of as chronological. Once your story gets enough views, the order changes.

The algorithm usually comes into play after 50 people have viewed your story.

The question is, how does the order of story viewers change after 50 users have viewed it?

How does Instagram rank story viewers?

Instagram ranks story viewers based on the how often a user interacts with your stories.

The users at the top of your story viewers interact with your stories the most.

On the other hand, the users at the bottom of your story views watch your stories the least.

In the past, some Instagram code was leaked which looks like a part of the algorithm.

It determined how the viewers are sorted, which stories show up first on the timeline, and on the explore pages.

However, nobody knows whether the code is still relevant in the present.

But there are some tests done that determined the factors that affect the order of the listing.

Firstly, the people who interact with your stories and posts the most will be higher up on the listing (e.g. likes, comments).

People who frequently interact with your stories will be ranked higher on your viewer’s list.

Essentially, whoever who appears first on the viewer list of your stories tend to view your stories the most.

This is how you can determine the people who are interested in your content.

One reason why the list is important is because if you’re selling a product/service, you can check people who are interested in them.

Once you have this information, these are the people that you want to be reaching out to because you have a higher chance of getting a sale from them.

Secondly, how much time someone spends on your profile, how many times someone visits your profile and watches your stories plays a huge role in sorting the viewer list.

Typically, someone who visits your profile frequently will be higher on your viewer’s list. That being said, the people who are at the top of your viewer’s list are most likely your stalkers.

This is not only how many of your stories someone watches, but also how they are interacting with it.

There are many types of interactions, but not limited to, skipping your story (swiping left), exiting your story, tapping left (previous story), and tapping right (next story).

Lastly, your interaction with the person on Whatsapp and Facebook might be part of the algorithm.

At the end of the day, Instagram is monetized with advertisements. This means that the app will try to collect as much data from you as possible to display the most relevant ads.

How to see your stalkers from your Instagram story viewers

There are multiple tests done by people that determined how Instagram sorts your story views.

To begin with, Paige Thelen from Instagram’s technology communications team mentioned this:

From the quote above, Instagram stories are ordered based on how likely you’ll interact with it.

Now, let’s look into how Instagram story viewers are ordered.

There’s a thread on Reddit where some people have tested the algorithm. Here are the results:

The first person tried an experiment with a friend where he visited his profile daily for a week.

After a week, his friend posted a story on Instagram and after a while, he was at the top of the list.

People at the top of your story viewers frequently visit your profile. To a considerable extent, these people could be stalking you.

This means that the person at the top of your story viewers visits your profile the most.

Based on this experiment, if you happen to see someone at the top of your story viewer’s list who isn’t following you, that person could be stalking you.

Here’s another experiment done by another person.

This person used a secondary account to stalk his main account.

He used the secondary account to watch his main account’s stories several times.

After 3 days, the secondary account jumped to the top of the viewers list on his main account’s stories.

Again, this proves that the people at the top of your viewer list are your stalkers/top viewers.

The people at the top of your viewer list on your stories are your stalkers and top viewers.

2. Use an Instagram analytics app

The second way you can use to check your stalkers is to use an Instagram analytics app.

You can easily check your stalkers within the app itself.

However, most of these apps are using the freemium model which means that you have to pay to check your stalkers.

If you’re willing to pay, going with an analytics app is a good idea because most of them are quite accurate.

As most of these apps contain paid features, you’re better off finding your Instagram stalkers by posting stories frequently using the previous method.

Conclusion

In this article, you’ve learnt how to know if someone if stalking you on Instagram, how to find and see them.

Here is a quick recap of everything:

1. You can see who stalks your Instagram by posting a story or using an app.

2. The people that are at the top of your viewer list on your story are your stalkers/top viewers.

3. Typically, someone who visits your profile frequently will be higher on your viewer list.

Now that you know the order of your story viewers, you can use it to your advantage to find out who’s stalking you on Instagram.

Related articles

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How To Know If You Are Shadowbanned On Instagram

How to Unfollow Users on Instagram Who Don’t Follow You Back

Author: Lim How Wei is the founder of Followchain. Feel free to follow him on Instagram.

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