So you’re a brand or company trying to gain traction on social media. Firstly, you should give yourself a pat on the back for even beginning. This is a big step! It’s also worth noting that amassing a number of followers is no small achievement. It’s also sometimes difficult to keep your followers. This is why today we want to talk about the top reasons you’re losing social media followers.

There are certainly plenty of people who try to “cheat” the system by buying bot followers, and that strategy makes for a poor long game. When you do this, you either get penalized for not adhering to the rules, or it’s obvious that your followers are inauthentic, because they never engage with your content.

On top of this, you have bought followers or likes, your follower count is likely dropping because the powers that be have recognized and deleted the bot accounts.

Instead, the real payoff comes from a steady build-up of followers and an audience who are interested in you and what you have to say. If you’ve already done that, go ahead and give yourself another pat on the back—but don’t put your feet up quite yet!

If you’re starting to get into the habit of putting out regular content, the next step is to get into the details of what’s working and what’s really not on your social media channels.

You see, measurement and analytics have changed everything. There is no point in investing your time and resources into pushing out content on your social media accounts if you’re not going to track the performance. You need to know what content is garnering attention and what is putting your followers off.

The first and most essential thing you can do is track your follower count week by week. If you notice that your follower count is dropping, it’s time to put on your superhero cape, go into social media crisis mode, and figure out why.

Without further ado, let’s dive on in…

The Top Reasons You’re Losing Social Media Followers

You’re Posting Too Often

We know… losing followers because you’re being too diligent about posting is like getting a traffic ticket because you’re driving under the speed limit. You have good intentions and you’re trying your best, and yet you find that your audience is still bailing on you. Not cool.

You’re not alone. In fact, this is probably the most common reason why social media followers will click the unfollow button. The brutal truth is that just because they want to hear what you have to say doesn’t mean they want to hear it every single time they log in to their social media channels. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

Instead of constantly putting yourself out there, you want your posts to be a gentle and even slightly fun reminder that your company or brand exists. You want to avoid being the foghorn that screams “look at me, everyone!” Remember that social media is crowded already. You don’t want to crowd it even more by serially posting on social media. As they say, less is more!

It Feels Overly Automated

If every one of your images is a stock photo and your content is repetitive, you have to admit, even you’ll start to get bored with your social media profiles. It’s no wonder that you’re losing followers. If this is the case, don’t stress. Simply start thinking outside the box when it comes to how you present your content.

When you share content, you shouldn’t just say “check out this interesting blog.” Instead, find some interesting quotes, stats, or facts to pull from and put them directly in your post. This will provide context without even clicking on the link. In addition, if you are indeed posting original blogs, try being more inventive with the photos and graphics you use. When you spend a little more time making interesting visuals, you’ll find that your content gets more engagement as an end result.

Lastly (and this is important), you shouldn’t include more actual hashtags than copy in your posts. When you do this, it reads formulaic and bot-like, which is the total opposite of how you ultimately want to sound.

You Didn’t Keep Your End of the Deal

Let’s say someone followed your account and they were hoping to read about the inner workings of digital marketing, but instead they got blurry photos of office antics and retweeted memes. This could be filed under false advertising, and your followers are actually fully entitled to unfollow you in return. The lesson? Make sure you’re posting things that are consistent with how you’re identifying your brand. It’s not the end of the world if you stray every now and then- just make sure your feed doesn’t become a case of confused identity.

You’re Not Offering Anything of Value

Everything you do on social media should add some sort of value. We’re talking about adding value to the community that you agreed to be a part of. Think about it this way – you wouldn’t run around a cocktail party showing off your impressive sales figures or latest venture the entire time (or maybe you would). Regardless, you shouldn’t do that on social media, either.

By all means, sharing exciting news when you have something to say is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but be sure to mix that in with a healthy dose of valuable information for others.

This could come in the form of interesting reads that your followers will find useful, amplifying other clients or company’s achievements, or providing context around an issue that you are uniquely qualified to give. You shouldn’t do this because it earns money- you do it because it makes you likable, and followable.

You’re Not Sharing Correctly

Every once in a while, it would behoove you to do an audit of your social media, and take an honest look at your posting habits. Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you sharing too much or too often? As we already covered, if there are multiple posts a day, you are likely oversharing.
• Are you not sharing often enough? Take a look at your last few posts. Do you see huge gaps of time between them? That could be a problem, as your followers expect consistency and engagement.

You should also ask, what kind of content are you sharing Does your Facebook wall read like a sales pitch? It’s been discovered that 57.5% of respondents said they would unfollow a brand for excessive self-promotion- make sure you’re mindful of this!

You’re Not Social Enough

There’s a reason why social media is called social media. You need to be actively starting and joining in on conversations. Additionally, you need to make sure that you respond to comments and complaints, and show your followers there’s a real human actually behind the scenes. Outside of this, it’s important to remember that once you participate in a conversation, you need to continue it.

We mean it when we say that you should look at social media like a conversation. Just as in real life, there is a back and forth and give and take. If you are only doing the talking and never engaging, this can translate into a loss of followers.

Oh, and by the way, you better be on your game when it comes to response time. In this on-demand society, social media users expect quick responses. In fact, 83% of people expect a response within 24 hours, and 38% expect one in an hour or even less. We know that you can’t respond immediately to every comment, followers shouldn’t be left hanging for days.

​​Your Follower​​s Aren’t Right for You

We’ve seen this time and time again. It happens most often when businesses use the “Like us on Facebook to be entered to win…” type of posts, or the “Follow us and tag three friends” approach to increase up exposure and be entered into a contest.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with running a contest and offering incentives every once in a while. Actually, running contests can be a viable way to add new followers quickly and get some brand exposure. However, the followers you gain may not be the followers you need exactly. If these people following you are not truly part of your target audience, they will almost certainly unfollow once the contest is over.

Once again, because we can’t stress this enough, buying followers is another quick way to get the wrong type of followers. You’ll immediately see engagement drop, your reputation will suffer, and most importantly, buying followers entirety violates the terms of service for most major social media networks. Skip the quick fix and take the time and effort to actually build the right audience for you.

You’re Using the Bait and Switch Tactic

You might have experienced this within minutes of joining Twitter or Instagram. Someone follows your account, so you get excited and follow them back. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship… or not. Then comes that sad moment where you realize they’ve unfollowed you. This is no way for a business to build authentic customer loyalty.

Instead, follow accounts that make sense for your business and brand. There’s really isn’t a need to follow every single person who follows you. Try to keep a 1:1 strategy.

UM, Your Profile Is Incomplete

When it comes to the world of social media, incomplete information is dangerous. Nobody actually likes visiting brands that have incomplete information, right? Nobody trusts an account that lacks a picture, or a profile that does not include their company’s website.

In short, if your profile is incomplete, chances are your audience won’t trust it and they will click on the unfollow button. The solution isn’t hard. Simply make sure to write a bio that is engaging and includes a professional photo as your profile picture. It’s also wise to keep your profile grid themed, as it will add more appeal to your profile.

Soooo… did you gain awesome wisdom from this? Do you want us to help you further? Well, we would love to! For all of your social media needs, visit us at www.dalexdesigngroup.com or www.dalexsocials.com