When should you REALLY start a new Instagram account and when should you not...
“Should I start a new Instagram account?” This is a question I get all the time, and honestly, I don’t blame people for asking it. It’s something I wrestled with myself for quite a while. In fact, on February 28th, I made the leap and started a new account from scratch. In this blog post, I’m going to dive into why I did it, whether it was the right move, and if you should consider doing the same.
Just so you know, at the time of writing this, that new account is about to hit 26k followers—so, yeah, it’s growing at a pretty decent rate. But this wasn’t my first rodeo. This is actually the fourth Instagram account I’ve built from scratch, but that’s a story for another time.
Why I Started a New Account
In 2023, I hit a rough patch with my main Instagram account. After enjoying rapid growth and crazy reach between 2021 and 2022, things just… slowed down. And to be honest, it was frustrating. My business depended on that account, so I was really hesitant to start over. But by the end of 2023, I was ready for a big change. I decided to pivot my business focus entirely to AI—a topic I was passionate about but hadn’t really covered on my main account, which had grown mainly through content about Instagram and social media.
Reason #1: Pivoting Your Business or Niche
If you’re pivoting your business, reworking your offers, products, or messaging, it might make sense to start fresh and train the algorithm from scratch. That’s exactly what I did. I felt that my new focus on AI needed its own space, free from the expectations set by my previous content.
If you’re thinking about doing the same, I have a mini-course on how to use ChatGPT to start a new account from scratch. Check it out here.
Reason #2: Past Mistakes Ruining Your Algorithm
Let’s be real—if you’ve ever bought followers, used power likes, joined engagement pods, or done any other “illicit” activities to boost your account, you might have damaged your algorithm beyond repair. I was guilty of this with my first account, and it left me with what I can only describe as a dead account. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t revive it.
In cases like this, starting a new account can be the best way to move forward. It gives you a clean slate and a chance to grow authentically.
Reason #3: Your Audience Isn’t Buying What You’re Selling
If you’ve tried every strategy in the book and still haven’t made any sales, it could be a sign that your current audience just isn’t interested in what you’re offering. This scenario is quite common when you’ve pivoted your personal account to a business account and your audience is made up of mostly family members, friends, and acquaintances.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, but sometimes the best move is to start from scratch. Focus on creating rapid growth content, like Reels, that can attract the right audience from the beginning and then focus on high-converting content to convert them to customers.
When You Shouldn’t Start a New Account
Honestly, these are the only three reasons I’d advise starting from scratch. If your account’s growth is stagnant or you took a long break, these issues can be fixed without starting over. Remember, if your account isn’t growing but you’re still making sales, you’re still winning. It’s about working with what you have and optimizing it before throwing in the towel.
A Little Experiment
Even though my new account is in a completely different niche, both my old and new accounts funnel traffic into the same offer: The AI Creator Academy. Usually, I post different content on each account, but every now and then, especially for promos, I’ll post the exact same thing on both accounts separately.
What’s mind-blowing is that almost every time, my new account gets more non-follower reach, better engagement, and more growth from the same post. Crazy, right?
For example, I posted this video on both accounts. On my new account, it got 4.4k views, 91 likes, 237 comments, 25 shares, 98 saves and it got me 9 followers. On the old account, it got only 3.1k views, 135 likes, 109 comments, 58 saves, 22 shares, and only 2 new followers.
Or this reel, which got me 2.2M views, 9.6k likes, 2.6k comments, 10k shares, 31k saves, and over 6k new followers, while it only got me 80k views, 922 likes, 221 comments, 1.9k saves, 1k shares, and only 171 new followers.
And I’ve talked about this in previous blogs, but here’s the proof that Instagram definitely prioritizes new accounts. So starting from scratch isn’t that bad after all, right?
Wrapping Up
So, are you thinking of starting a new Instagram account from scratch? Before you jump in, consider whether your account really needs a full reset. There’s a lot you can do to revive a stagnant account, like improving your profile (I just wrote a blog post about that last week, check it out here), creating a better content strategy, or using innovative growth tools like ChatGPT.
Speaking of which, I used ChatGPT to build, optimize, and grow my new account, and it’s been a game-changer. This has been the easiest account to grow with the least effort, and I’ve put all my step-by-step framework into an easy-to-digest mini-course.
Grab it here and start transforming your dead or stagnant Instagram account today!
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