Depending on where you get your social media tips, you may have heard other experts out there telling you to turn on your Instagram account suggestions in order to increase your followers and get found by more people.

This advice isn’t wrong, but you need to understand the full impact of using those accounts suggestions for your account.

Or, keep reading below!

What are Account Suggestions on Instagram?
This feature allows other similar users to be recommended on a profile when someone goes to a new profile. As a user viewing someone’s profile on IG, you’ll see a list of similar accounts just under their profile details. These are similar accounts based on content, niche, keywords, style, location, etc.

Why would you want to turn on Account Suggestions?
The obvious reason is free exposure on Instagram. It’s free advertising and allows you to get in front of more people that are your ideal audience.

If someone is checking out your competitors or others aligned with you in your industry, there’s a very good chance they would find your account interesting or valuable as well and it’s a no-brainer you’d want to be included as a recommended account to that audience.

It’s a definite advantage for you in this respect!

But…

There is a disadvantage to turning on Account Suggestions
When you turn on Account Suggestions, you turn it on BOTH WAYS. Meaning while your account will be recommended on other people’s accounts, it also means other people’s accounts will be recommended on your profile. The feature only works both ways or no way. You can’t turn one on and not the other.

So, if you want to be recommended, you have to understand that others will be recommended when visiting your profile as well. If that’s something you don’t want, then you probably wouldn’t want to turn on this feature.

So, what should you do?
That’s entirely up to you and is a choice for your personal account or brand account.

Personally, I have this turned on. I absolutely want to be recommended to others whenever possible and I’m not worried if others are recommended to my audience. The more the merrier in helping to educate as many people as possible when it comes to Instagram.

How to Enable or Disable Suggested Accounts on Instagram

Whether you want to turn this or on off based on the information above, here are the steps to make those selections:

It’s as simple as that! And, yes, you can change that again in the future. So, if there’s a reason why you wouldn’t want this enabled during certain times or seasons, you can switch it up to match your individual strategy.