Followers
Followers are people who chose to see your posts in their feed. If your account is private, they had to send a request that you approved. The number under Followers on your profile counts them.
Following
Following are the accounts whose posts you chose to see. Following someone doesn’t make them follow you, and they can follow or unfollow you whenever they like.
How the two lists overlap
Comparing the lists puts every account into one of three groups:
| Group | You follow them | They follow you |
|---|---|---|
| Mutual follows | Yes | Yes |
| Not following you back (non-followers) | Yes | No |
| You don’t follow back (fans) | No | Yes |
An example
Say you follow @ana, @ben and @cara, and you’re followed by @ana and @dev. Then @ana is a mutual follow, @ben and @cara don’t follow you back, and @dev follows you but you don’t follow them back.
Why compare followers and following?
- To find accounts you follow that don’t follow you back, and decide whether to keep following them.
- To find followers you haven’t followed back yet.
- To see how many of your connections are mutual.
How to compare the lists
Comparing by eye stops working after a few dozen accounts. The reliable way is to download both lists from Instagram and add them to a followers and following checker, which sorts every account into the three groups above.
Why the numbers can differ from your profile
Your export is a snapshot from when Instagram created it, so follows after that aren’t in it. Deactivated accounts, and accounts that changed their username, can also make the counts differ slightly from the numbers on your profile.