What is a target account, and what makes a good one?
A target is an Instagram account whose followers you would like as your own. We engage with the real, active followers of the accounts you name, so your targets decide who sees your profile every day. They are the single biggest lever you control.
Good targets are niche-relevant, active, and not too broad. Think competitors and peers first, then the publications, communities and brands your ideal follower already follows. Specific beats big: a focused account with 10,000 engaged followers usually sends better people your way than a generic one with a million, because everyone following the small account chose it for exactly the thing you do. Newer or smaller pages often do best with targets under 25,000 followers.
Targets are accounts, never hashtags. And there is no map-based location targeting on Instagram, for anyone, but location follows naturally from the right targets: the followers of your city's venues, media and community pages are local people, which is how shops, gyms and restaurants grow local audiences with us every month.
Start with five to ten good ones. The dashboard then shows each target's follow-back rate, so the list improves with evidence instead of hunches: keep what performs, swap what does not. For a deeper walkthrough with examples, read how to choose targets that follow back.