UPDATE: We get dozens of requests and messages on Instagram every day so we decided to update the article and included tips & tricks to claim an inactive username without having a trademark. Please read the ENTIRE article before sending us a message on Instagram.
Yesterday we claimed an inactive username on Instagram and before you read the rest, you should try claiming your dream username before someone else does. However, there are 2 types of inactive username on Instagram:
- Somebody took the username and hasn’t been sharing pictures for weeks, but it is still there and you can see the account. You can’t claim that username because it’s already taken.
- Somebody took the username and then either deleted the account or got his/her account suspended for some reason. You can’t see the account but you still can’t use the username; @greenide was that kind of username.
We didn’t send an email or try to reason with Instagram. Actually, we did it like 2 years ago and took our very first official answer from Instagram. They stated “They can’t provide personal service” meaning “they don’t care”. Then we tried to threaten Instagram and mentioned about Flickr and Tumblr accounts we have (I know, the worst plan ever) but it didn’t work either – “We still don’t care.”
CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW WE CLAIMED A PINTEREST USERNAME THAT’S ALREADY BEEN TAKEN
When we first opened an Instagram account for Greenide, we couldn’t take the username @greenide even if it was not being used by anyone. So we took @greenidecom instead and that has been our Instagram username until yesterday. If you don’t have a company, a blog, a website or a product to feature; you probably wouldn’t care if your username is @jackallan006 or @jackallan1992, because you’ll just share selfies and Starbucks cups with hashtags like #friends #funny #thispartyiskiller.
Is It Important To Have The Same Username For All Social Account?
It is 2016 and it is VERY hard to have the same username for every single social media account. But I am telling you, whether you are going to start a company, a website or a product; it is very important to have the same username for every single social media account. It became the part of marketing because social media websites are the new face of advertising and it is free.
With social media accounts, you can reach more people than you can reach with TV advertisements. The new generation doesn’t watch TV anymore, they watch YouTube. When people see a new brand, they judge it by its Facebook likes. They check the score of the movies on Rottentomatoes or IMDb before they even watch it. We can’t deny the power of internet and usernames have great importance in terms of having a good image on the internet.
We have been using the same username for Twitter and Facebook but unfortunately, someone took @greenide username on Instagram before we did and the worst part was he/she was not even using it, it was an inactive username. If you have noticed, there are many great usernames out there and most of them are inactive, it is very frustrating. The most frustrating part is Instagram doesn’t give you this username even if no one uses it.
How To Claim Inactive Instagram Username WITH A Trademark
You should also know that you can’t claim an inactive Instagram username directly, there are steps you need to follow:
1. Fill out this online form and deactivate the user that violates your trademark, so the username will be an empty username like @greenide before we claimed it.
2. Wait for an important Instagram update to claim the inactive Instagram username because some of the updates may affect the database or they might deliberately delete inactive usernames to optimize their database.
How To Claim Inactive Instagram Username WITHOUT A Trademark
Lately, we lost over 40 followers overnight. That means Instagram removed fake or inactive Instagram accounts in order to optimize their database. If don’t have the trademark, you’ll have to wait for an opportunity like that to claim the username you want.
If your Instagram account has 5000 followers or more, you can observe the number of your followers and if you lose many followers in a single day, that means Instagram has removed many inactive or fake accounts from their database – try to claim the username you want immediately.
If you don’t have many followers, you can observe the other account with massive followers like celebrities. For instance, the rock is one of the most followed accounts on Instagram. The day we lost 40 followers, he probably has lost thousands of fake or inactive followers, which was quite noticeable. Check his account every day to see if he loses followers and if he does, see if you can claim the username you want – that’s the only way if you don’t have a trademark.
UPDATE #2 (24/11/2020)
We still receive hundreds of messages and requests from Instagram whether certain Instagram account can be claimed or not. I will give you a solid example whether an account can be claimed or not.
Example #1: The account below is not an inactive account and cannot be claimed. Even though owner doesn’t share any pictures or doesn’t even have a profile photo, she/he still might be using Instagram to browse or check people out:
Example #2: The account below (@da) is an inactive account and can be claimed. All you need to do is wait for it to be active again and try to claim the username every now and again:
