Follow for Follow: Good Social Strategy or Waste of Time?

Follow for follow is a hot topic in the world of social media strategies. Despite being around for years, this strategy continues to gain traction as platforms become more competitive.

While it offers a quick way to grow your audience, it raises important questions about authenticity, engagement, and long-term value. Does it truly work? Is it too spammy? Could it even get your account blocked?

In this guide, we’ll break down follow for follow to help you know if it’s a worthwhile addition to your social media toolkit.

Let's dive in!

What Is Follow for Follow?

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, follow for follow (also referred to as F4F, follow4follow, or follow to follow back) is a strategy where social media users follow other accounts in exchange for being followed back. It’s a common tactic for individuals, small creators, and new accounts who are looking to grow their follower count quickly. The principle is simple: by following others, you encourage them to return the favor.

There are two types of users who engage in follow for follow: sharers and initiators. A user can choose to participate in either or both of the roles.

Sharers are relatively passive users who signal their interest in follow for follow on their social media profiles or in online groups, waiting for others to follow them first. In practice, this could involve using the hashtag #followforfollow in an Instagram post or sharing their account handle in a Reddit group where similar users are engaging in follow for follow.

Initiators, on the other hand, actively reach out to individual users to execute on follow for follow agreements. This might involve sending users a direct message, dropping a comment below a follow for follow post, or even simply hitting the “follow” button first. Initiators often target sharers who have already indicated an interest in mutual follows or users they believe might reciprocate.

Examples of Follow for Follow in Action

• Uploading an Instagram story with the caption, “Follow me, and I’ll follow back! #f4f.”
• Commenting on someone’s Instagram reel with the question, “Follow for follow?”
• Sharing a profile link in Reddit groups like r/FollowForFollow with the note “f4f Insta.”

This strategy often leads to an artificial boost in followers. If your primary goal is to boost your follower counts, follow for follow often effectively serves its purpose. But it comes with significant downsides. (I'll get into those later.)

How to Use Follow for Follow on Instagram

If you’re considering using follow for follow to grow your account and reach goals like 100K Instagram followers but aren’t sure exactly how to get started, this section will walk you through the process, covering tactics used by both sharers and initiators. Although it’s a straightforward approach, success will depend on executing it purposefully and monitoring its impact.

Step 1: Find Follow for Follow Users

Identify users who seem open to follow to follow exchanges. These are users who have actively posted about seeking mutual follows to grow their audience.

Step 2: Leverage Communities and Platforms

Use a combination of tools and online groups to find potential followers:

• Hashtags: Search for hashtags like #followforfollow, #f4f, or #followback to find accounts interested in follow for follow.

• Reddit: Explore subreddits like r/FollowForFollow or r/follow4follow, where users who are interested in mutual follows share their profiles.

• Facebook: Join Facebook groups like “Instagram Followers,” where users connect in order to follow for follow.

• Followchain: This is a platform that has analyzed more than 1,500 Instagram accounts in different niches to find handles that follow back. Browse this article to find people to add, or you can pay to be added to their list of accounts.

Step 3: Follow Them on Instagram

Once you’ve found potential users, follow their accounts on Instagram to initiate the exchange.

You can follow someone on Instagram by visiting the account’s profile. Click on the blue “Follow” button to officially follow the account. The person will receive a notification of your follow.

Step 4: Message Them

Send them a direct message (DM) to let them know you’ve followed them, and invite them to follow you. Try using a message like:

“Hi [account name]! Thanks for being open to f4f. I just followed you, let me know once you’ve followed back!”

Step 5: Create Your Own Posts Promoting Follow to Follow

Signal your own interest by creating posts that clearly state your intent to participate in follow for follow. Publish them on the platforms listed above (i.e. Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, Followchain). If using Instagram, remember to use the #followforfollow and #f4f hashtags.

Step 6: Wait, Respond, and Follow Back

Be patient as people respond, and start to follow back those who have added you.

And, that's it! That is the entire follow for follow process, in a nutshell. Setting a clear follower goal and measuring your progress over time will help you determine whether this strategy is effective for you. Keep in mind that results may not be immediate, and it’s common for some users to unfollow you. Since followers gained through follow for follow are random and not an engaged community, you can expect a higher attrition rate.

Follow for Follow Back on Other Platforms

Follow for follow is not exclusively found on Instagram. It can also be seen on X and TikTok. It exists on Pinterest (to a lesser extent) as well. With all three, you can employ the exact same hashtag strategy as for Instagram, using #followforfollow to find users and indicate interest. With Pinterest, however, there's a much smaller follow for follow community, so you might not find the strategy to be as viable there.

YouTube also has its own version of follow for follow called “sub for sub.” This is where a YouTuber subscribes to other channels with the promise that those channels will subscribe back. Instead of using hashtags to identify interested users, they’ll leave comments on high-performing videos or in online forums.

It's important to note that the algorithms on these social media platforms have been coded in a way that deprioritizes follower count and puts more emphasis on engagement rates. What this means, in layman's terms, is that your content matters more than the size of your audience.

For the same reason, platforms like LinkedIn, Discord, and Medium are also not well-suited to follow for follow. These platforms prioritize authentic connections, community engagement, and high-quality content, which makes follower count less relevant for success.

Also, engaging in follow for follow can raise red flags, as many algorithms actively discourage this practice. This could result in your account being flagged for suspicious behavior or even suspended. Unfortunately, most social media platforms don’t explicitly state the exact consequences for follow for follow, so you can never be exactly sure what actions will trigger a punishment.

If you check the sections on spam, fake behavior, and fake engagement in the community standards for Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, you'll get a clearer idea of what's not allowed.

My Experience Using Follow for Follow on YouTube

While I haven’t personally used follow for follow on Instagram, I have experience with sub for sub on YouTube. Much of what I’ve learned on YouTube can provide valuable insights into follow for follow on Instagram as well, as the two strategies are very similar. The strategies I'll discuss in this section helped me grow a YouTube channel that now has more than 180k subscribers.

First, I started by creating a new channel on YouTube, and I gave myself a goal to grow it to 100 subscribers in one month. Many online forums warned that using sub for sub was risky, potentially even leading to a channel ban. That's why I was only willing to test it on a very new account. This minimized the potential risk, and it allowed me to adopt a “what’s the worst that can happen?” mentality.

Once the channel was set up, I found different YouTube forums to connect with people interested in sub for sub. At the time, the forum that I used was TubeBuddy, but sub for sub is now banned on this platform. Today, if I were to use sub for sub again, Reddit would be my go-to platform.

From there, I began executing my sub for sub-strategy. I subscribed to anyone who offered to subscribe to me. And, if they didn’t return the favor? I didn’t even notice. I simply bulldozed ahead, moving forward regardless of other people’s actions.

Additionally, to supplement my channel growth, I sent out hundreds of emails. I used a targeted approach, as I predicted that channels with content like mine were most likely to have audiences that enjoyed my videos, and they would therefore be more likely to subscribe and engage with my content. I found YouTube channels in my niche, went through their videos, and emailed people from the comments section one by one. The emails read something along the lines of, “Hi, I think you’d really enjoy my channel because…”. Often, I’d get responses to those emails asking to sub for sub, and I would accept.

I was able to grow to more than 100 subscribers in about three weeks through this process of using sub for sub while simultaneously releasing videos. I had hoped, even though my general sub for sub-strategy was not targeted, that focusing on my niche in the emails I sent would result in higher engagement. However, virtually none of these subscribers ever engaged with my content, likely because they weren’t drawn to it naturally.

Even so, these followers proved to be incredibly important. They gave my channel a foundation, serving as a psychological indicator that I was already popular and, therefore, worth following. From there, I was able to grow organically, without sub for sub, to my next 1k subscribers and, eventually, 100k.

When considering a follow for follow approach for yourself, keep in mind that my sub for sub experience is over a decade old. Social media algorithms have since become far more advanced, focusing on how much of your audience engages with your content. Follow for follow could hurt your growth by building a fanbase that’s largely uninterested in your content. As always, it’s important to know your goals, adapt this approach for you, and create content that resonates with viewers.

Advantages of Using Follow for Follow

With countless opinions online, it can be challenging to determine the true benefits of a follow for follow strategy. Many social media content strategists hesitate to try it due to potential risks, but it's equally important to consider the positive aspects to gain a balanced perspective.

• Initial Visibility: When you’re just getting started, it can help your account get noticed, attracting organic followers over time.
• Boosts Social Proof: The bigger you are, the more credibility you gain in the eyes of people who are considering following your account.
• Rapid Follower Growth: This strategy allows you to boost your follow count very quickly, which can be appealing compared to the amount of time it takes to grow organically.
• Doesn’t Require New Content: Creating new content can take a lot of energy, whereas follow for follow requires very little original thought to execute.
• Simplicity: The method is incredibly straightforward to use for social media beginners. It requires no special skills or tools.
• Cost-Effective: Follow for follow is a free alternative to paid ads or promotional campaigns, which makes it very cost-effective.
• Networking Opportunities: With all the people you meet during follow for follow, it could lead to future collaborations.

Disadvantages of Using Follow for Follow

There's a good reason you don’t see any of your favorite influencers using a follow for follow strategy. The drawbacks of it are compelling and many. To provide a clearer perspective, here's a list of the key disadvantages associated with this approach:

• High Unfollow Rate: A large number of people who promise follow for follow either don’t follow back or quickly unfollow. This makes it difficult to retain a high count.
• Time-Consuming: To gain new followers and deal with the high unfollow rate, this strategy requires constantly finding new users. It’s often a lot of effort for little payoff - time that could be better spent creating new content.
• Low Engagement Rates: Even though you might gain a lot of followers, many of them will be uninterested in your content, which can lead to low likes, comments, and shares.
• Low Credibility: Having high follower counts with low engagement rates can severely impact the perception of your account. It can make it look inauthentic, spammy, or inactive.
• Hinders Algorithm Performance: A poor community response to your posts can result in the algorithm choosing to share it with fewer people.
• Not Sustainable for Growth: Long-term growth relies on high-quality, original content, which a follow for follow strategy doesn't address.
• Risk of Being Flagged: Platforms may block, suspend, or even ban your account if they detect you're using follow-for-follow. Since the exact rules aren't always clear, this falls into a tricky gray area. However, you can get a general idea of the limits by checking each platform's community guidelines, especially the sections on spam.

For some ideas on more legitimate ways to increase your social media follower count, check out How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy.

Final Thoughts

There's no world in which I could ever be convinced to use a follow for follow approach today on my larger platforms, as I would never want to risk them getting banned.

That being said, I remember what it was like to be young and hungry for social media success, where I would’ve done anything to get those first initial followers. If you are at that stage, I wouldn’t say I recommend using follow for follow, but I would say that I understand if you did. Follow for follow is a lot of work (and even more risk) for very little reward. The decision to use it, if you do, should be measured and well thought out. At the very least, consider limiting your follow for follow to people in your niche.

Just remember: There's no follow for follow approach that will ever beat out a good, old-fashioned content strategy. When thinking about how you’re going to plan and execute yours, it helps to start with the right management resources. We’ve tested and compared more than 40 social media tools to come up with our top picks for the best social media management software. Alternatively, you can use our Finder Tool to find the right fit for your needs. These resources will help you evaluate whether your strategies have what it takes to succeed. Also check out some of the best social media content strategists and what they to achieve their success!