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.
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.
- Launch the Instagram App.
- Tap on your profile icon (settings) to open your profile page.
- Touch the hamburger icon (menu) in the top-right section.
- Select Settings from the menu and then choose Privacy.
- 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.
- Open Settings, then Privacy on Instagram.
- 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.
- Select your Profile on Instagram.
- Tap on Followers at the top.
- 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
How to Unfollow Everyone on Instagram at Once
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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How to know if you are being followed on Instagram
July 21, 2020
Social media stalking is unwanted and very intrusive attention to a certain person and spying on another user's Instagram*. In the Russian Federation, stalking is not considered something illegal, so those who simply watch cannot be held accountable. Not only popular personalities can become victims of stalking, but also ordinary users of social networks.
networks. It can be constant likes, intrusive comments and much more.
What is stalking
Types of stalking
Online stalking can be divided into several types. The types themselves were identified by psychologists from Australia and identified the following groups:
- Past relationships: victims who had a close relationship with the persecutor;
- Acquaintances and friends;
- Professional acquaintances: students, clients became persecutors;
- Work acquaintances: workplace stalker;
- Strangers: a random person becomes a victim;
- Celebrities: popular politicians, etc.
Social surveillance networks is cyberstalking, which has become possible in the modern world.
When stalking is no longer just a joke
It is very important to know the line between social media surveillance and the real danger that a stalker can pose.
Stalking forces the victim to change their habitual way of life, limit their movement and freedom.
It is not uncommon for victims of Instagram surveillance* to receive threatening photos and messages, and sometimes letters. Sometimes things go even further - the stalker damages the property of his victim, tracks down her address and may even threaten directly.
At present, a person cannot be held liable for ordinary surveillance, but in the event of threats, suspicious calls and other similar moments, it is necessary to record evidence and be sure to contact the police in order to ensure the safety of yourself and your family.
How social networks help stalkers track down their victims
Instagram* tracking a user opens up a huge number of opportunities for a possible stalker, and also gives him a lot of information. Instagram* is a very popular network where people post daily photos of their lives, stories and other videos.
This is what gives the stalker a clue about the life of his victim.
The stalker pays attention to:
- Places where the user appears;
- People tagged in photos;
- Places marked on the photo;
- Interests and comments of the victim;
- His relatives and other people who may be with him in videos or photos;
- Other information from the profile.
If possible, do not trust a social network with too personal information, including a phone number and personal address.
Signs that you are being stalked
Instagram* tracking a user is a serious violation of personal space and should be treated with caution. You need to be aware of those signs that may indicate that someone is watching a person:
- They can leave their marks under a lot of publications;
- Most of their comments are directed at personal matters;
- These users may receive spam in private messages;
- They know a lot about a person, even if he did not tell them anything;
- There are attempts to intimidate the person;
- Signs of possession;
- Extreme obsession.
Even though Instagram* spying on a user may seem insignificant, there may be a few more signs:
- The user's property can be damaged after some online threats;
- The address may receive unexpected gifts, letters or postcards.
A close person can also become a stalker.
Pay attention to the signs above and consider if you fit these signs. If so, you should think about your actions in the social. networks. How to deal with stalking and where to turn for help Only in the case when the victim receives real threats of murder or injury. But if there is no evidence of this, then you should pay attention to other ways to ensure your safety:
- Do not give vague answers and clearly answer “no”;
- Ask for help from loved ones;
- Don't post your whole life on social media. networks and encrypt personal profile data. It is better to keep it closed and only admit people you know;
- Don't be alone.
Online tracking on Instagram* is not a funny thing, but a very real thing and don't be afraid to ask for help if something seems to be wrong. It is important to understand that personal security and freedom are more important than anything else.
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How to find out who visited my page on Instagram
The Instagram social network is one of the most popular network sites, where a huge number of personal and business accounts are registered daily. The main content of each of them can be similar or radically different, but the main condition for the development of a profile is always views. Therefore, the question of how to find out which of the subscribers came to my page on Instagram to look at the posts, sooner or later everyone asks.
After all, this knowledge will help not only track your most successful publications, but also decide on a further development strategy.
For example, if strangers rather than regular subscribers prefer to visit the page, then it would not be superfluous to plan the creation of content specifically for them. Knowing who visited your Instagram page most often, it's easy to start creating targeted posts that will really help increase your reach. But this will only be possible if unsubscribed, and just any other guests on Instagram can be found and their pages studied. But doing it is not as easy as it might seem.
Is it possible to see guests on Instagram
The initial on-net opportunity to see who visited the page is available in Odnoklassniki, but it is completely absent on Instagram. On the one hand, thanks to this, you can freely access any Instagram profile, remaining “invisible” for its owner. On the other hand, promotion among the most active users without this function slows down.
After all, if you advertise your page simply in the general Instagram feed, or among people who are regularly interested in it, it is clear that the second promotion option is much more effective.
However, Instagram's privacy policy allows you to detect a passive guest only if he has shown any activity. That is, if an unsigned visitor decides to just come in and not leave likes, comments, it is impossible to detect him using the functionality of the Instagram network itself. And yet, there are ways to see which of the invisibles came in such a “quiet way” to your Instagram account. True, not everyone will like them, because often you will have to pay for this information - money, time, or risk the page itself.
How to see who visited on Instagram
The easiest way to find an unfollowed guest is to regularly check new likes and comments under posts.
This standard solution allows you to detect everyone who came to visit and showed activity. To do this, you need:
- Click the icon depicting a heart on the bottom bar of the Instagram page menu.
- Find lists showing the activity of your subscriptions and followers.
- Activate the Subscriptions tab.
- Check for updates related to your profile activity.
In such a simple way, the social network Instagram helps to find out which of the familiar or unfamiliar users came to you, while leaving a like or comment. This is where the guest tracking capabilities of the official Instagram user feature set are limited.
Another question is how it is possible and whether it is possible to see guests on Instagram who do not leave any activity behind. It is impossible to do this otherwise than using an additional third-party program. We are talking about services and spy applications that are designed specifically to track users who prefer to “go in unnoticed”.
But it is important to remember that each such application not only violates the rules of Instagram, but can also turn out to be the usual fraudulent page hijacking software. Therefore, it is better to trust only more than once proven services. Or at least go to them from fake spare profiles, which are not a pity to lose during preliminary reconnaissance of the service's capabilities. And, since the answer is no to the question of whether it is visible on Instagram who an outsider looked at my page without liking or commenting, a curious user will not be able to completely do without them.
Ways to find out who visited my page on Instagram
Consider all the official and unofficial ways that allow you to view page guests on Instagram. The official options for the social network are limited to just three types of search for hidden "invisible" guests:
- Tracking likes is the obvious and easiest way to see who has been visiting the most recently.
- Studying "Stories" - many "quiet observers" are not afraid of short-lived likes, because in a day both the story itself and the "like" mark will disappear.
- Create a private profile. In this case, the ability to access the page will remain exclusively with subscribed users.
Any of the above methods really helps to identify the guests of the Instagram page, although not always as completely as we would like. But to find out who still came in, but did not take any action, only a special cloud service or a program created to view the guests of the Instagram account will help. The danger of accessing unverified resources that offer such an opportunity has already been mentioned above.
Services and applications that have already received confirmation of their effectiveness and safety among Instagram users will be collected below. Or, on the contrary, they are recognized as useless.
Services and applications that show guests on Instagram
To see who visited the page on Instagram, many “effective” applications have been created. All of them offer to compile detailed lists of strangers who have logged in without being active on your Instagram account. But not all of them are really useful. This is especially true for programs that offer to regularly receive for free the names of everyone who decided to visit you, but did not dare to like or comment on publications.
The most famous representatives of useless Instagram applications for such "espionage" are the programs "InstaSpy", "My guests and fans from Instagram", "Instafans", "My guests and followers". The ads describe many of them as the most effective way to track any account that visits a page regularly or occasionally. Usually, however, such programs produce only a randomly generated list of names of zero value.
Although among such applications there are options that can help. Or vice versa, to do much harm, causing the blocking or loss of your Instagram account. Let's take a quick look at all of these options.
Visitors for Instagram
The Visitors analytics system for Instagram helps to identify the real user who could actually visit. The result of her work is a list of 200 names of unique unsigned profiles. You can try the features of the application for free, according to the developers. But in fact, user reviews say that for free, she only collects a list of those who came to my Instagram. And to see this list, you need to pay for this opportunity. Only the first two names from the mentioned list are free.
Unfollowgram site
The Unfollowgram site is a multi-platform service that really helps to identify hidden page visitors. To get them, you need to do the following on the official page of the service:
- Click the Sign in with Instagram button.
- Log in using your Instagram account login and password.
- Start studying the activity of subscribers, as well as see who visited the page "quietly" and what publications they viewed.
After registration, the site saves the entire previous list of followers, comparing it with the new one with each subsequent authorization. Thanks to this, you can really find those who came without showing activity. A bonus is the ability to determine the most popular publications among subscribers and guests.
Who Viewed Me on Instagram
Who Viewed Me on Instagram is another shareware tool for Android and iOS devices. It is positioned as a means of social entertainment and, according to advertising, shows who came to visit. It is difficult to judge how true this is, we did not dare to test it. Why - the developer of this application was involved in the creation of the unpleasantly remembered InstaAgent program, with the help of which tens of thousands of pages were hacked.
Therefore, installing WVMoI or similar for the sake of the security of your Instagram account is not recommended.
Many apps dedicated to spying on Instagram offer not only to see who "quietly" visits the user's page, but also collect other useful data. But the real value of many such programs is completely absent - they only create random lists of names, while requiring you to log in to work with them using the real Instagram page login and password. A lot of such applications have been created, and a beautiful “wrapper” can deceive even a sophisticated Instagram user.
Therefore, instead of looking for a separate software that collects guest statistics, it is better to pay attention to proven services for promoting your Instagram page. It is among them that it is most correct to look for an “assistant spy”. And services with a dubious reputation are best avoided.
Even if the service offers to find out who logged in, completely free of charge, plus with all the detailed layout for the selected account - its coverage, activity time, preferences, etc.
- it's better to double-check everything in advance. Very often, all these features are just a “hook” that convinces naive Instagram users to visit a page using a particular application. The result of such a thoughtless act is usually predictable - a stolen account.
Conclusion
The official privacy policy of the social network Instagram today is this. If you have guests, on Instagram it is impossible to see them by their activity. And the developers do not plan to create a spy function, by analogy with Odnoklassniki. Only third-party services and a few official methods will allow you to see an unsigned person who visited your page quietly.
Some of these services or programs are inconvenient, some are dangerous, some are only partially helpful. But the main thing to take away from all of the above is that Instagram users still have ways to see who came to visit.
