Multiple Instagram Accounts Are More Useful Than You’d Think

A cynical person might say Instagram's multiple-account promotion is all about padding its user numbers, but it could actually be useful. 

Instagram has been encouraging users to sign up for more accounts for a while now. If you do, you can either link that account to the one(s) you have already, or you can make it a separate account. Facebook wins here because it gets to add all those extra signups to its new-users metric. But multiple accounts might be a good thing for users, too.

"As an author/speaker," Christine Eberle told Lifewire via email, "I use two Instagram accounts: one personal, one professional. My professional followers don't need to see all those pictures of dogs, meals, and sunrises!"

Keep It Simple

If you've been using Instagram for a while, perhaps you follow many people. A new account might seem like a fresh start, and Instagram is indeed billing it that way. One of its sign-up notifications suggests you can "keep up with a smaller group of friends," for example. Or perhaps you might like one account for work and one for personal use. Or you're sick of following some folks but don't want them to see you've unfollowed them. 

There are many good reasons to create a second or third Instagram account. And because it’s easy to switch between them without logging out of one account and back into another, you can almost treat your accounts like separate tabs of the app. 

Keep It Professional

Professionals can benefit, too. Marketers, PR people, anyone who has to follow lots of people—can benefit from some account segregation. For example, one respondent to my requests for comment, Dymphe Mensink, a travel content creator, told me she uses two accounts, one for personal use and another for business. 

"Besides my main account where I post all kinds of travel photos and videos, I have a separate account for selling photo presets," says Mensink. "An extra account allows me to refer to that account in my posts by tagging, which makes it easier for my followers to find my presets, which is better for selling them."

Designer, UX expert, and multiple-Instagram-account user Geoffrey Crofte agrees:

"It's well known in the industry of video, shorts, and imagery that having a one-topic account is the best way to grow your followers," Crofte told Lifewire via email. "People now have two choices: dedicate their own account to a topic, or create a new account for it."

What’s in It for Facebook?

Facebook, aka Meta, the owner of Facebook, makes its billions from targeted ads. And few ad platforms offer better targeting than Instagram—based purely on using it and knowing how scarily tempting those ads are. 

We’ve already mentioned that having more new user accounts is a good thing for a company that measures its success in terms of the size of its user base. But could these accounts also allow for even more effective and targeted advertising?

"Because [separate accounts] essentially encourages niching down and laser-focusing content to easily-defined user clusters, it can make targeted advertising easier, which is a good thing as far as Facebook is concerned," tracking company founder Charles Helms told Lifewire via email. 

"For [Facebook parent company] Meta, this means one more place to display ads and a second hit at the same set of eyes," marketing strategist Ashley-Anne Schmidt told Lifewire via email. 

But really, everybody seems to win here. Instagram users can better separate their areas of interest and create more private accounts to share with a subset of their regular followers. Businesses can better control their marketing, and Facebook gets to make yet more money. Overall, then, multiple accounts look like a good thing.