If you’re scratching your head wondering if this is yet another social site to keep track of, don’t worry, it’s not. Well, not really.

Finsta is just another way teens and young adults are getting around public social sites. Finsta is simply another name for “fake Instagram.” Basically, this is a second Instagram account people (usually the younger set) will create with a name that’s not easily identifiable where they typically post things that they wouldn’t want Grandma or Aunt Sally to see.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. Some teens create finsta accounts simply to post things they don’t want their parents to see, or pictures that are not filtered and “at their best” but they hold some humorous value they want to share with a select few, but it may not be risque or “sketchy” posts. In other cases, it can be used for less than desired activities, such as posting racier pictures or sharing risky behavior, or, even worse, being used to harass someone online.

To get a better sense of understanding why some choose to “finsta”, you may want to read this insightful article written by a teen that talks about why they choose to create finsta accounts.

How do you know if your teen has a finsta? There may be a few ways to find out:

• Take a look at their followers: often times teens will follow their finsta account and won’t be as creative as they think they are with a user name for the fake account. One example would be a girl named Julia Luckett creating a finsta user name of JulieInABucket. Other times they will use a picture of themselves as the profile picture on their fake account.

• If they’re a younger teen, take a look at their Instagram account on their phone. Most times, since Instagram allows multiple accounts to be created, the teen will simply create a second account under the same email and/or mobile number. In this case, if you look at their user name at the top of the page, you’ll see an arrow next to it – that can be used to see if there are multiple accounts created. If your teen is more savvy, they may create a second account with a “throwaway” Gmail account that you may or may not be aware of. In this case, it may be more difficult to ascertain their finsta account.

 

• If you use a regular social monitoring service, be sure to include all known email addresses and phone numbers. Don’t forget to include old email addresses, school email addresses, land lines, and all cell phone numbers (even old ones). Providing this information when using a social media monitoring service will be helpful in identifying all social accounts for your teens.

Not only does social media change constantly, but so do the way teens use it (and find workarounds in using it in different ways). It can be challenging to keep up with, but worth it in so many ways. While finsta is fairly new, it won’t be long before the next new site or way to use a site pops up. When it does, we’ll be here to tell you about it.