Introduction
Losing followers can be tough. It’s hard to know why the numbers are down, but it’s even harder to bounce back from the loss when you don’t know what happened in the first place. But there is a silver lining here: sometimes losing followers can be a good thing! If your follower count is dropping because of bots or ghost followers or if you’re switching up your content, loosing some followers isn’t necessarily bad news. In fact, it might be just what you need to get back on track and engage with new audiences who are interested in what you have to say.
The quality of your followers is more important than the quantity.
If you’re worried that losing followers is a sign of an imminent social media apocalypse, take some comfort in the fact that quality always trumps quantity.
The quality of your followers is more important than the quantity. This can be measured by a variety of factors:
- How many people follow your account?
- What kind of content do they engage with?
- How often are they engaging with it and how much do they engage with it?
- Are those engagements positive or negative in nature (i.e., likes and comments versus shares)?
- Do people who aren’t following you know about what you have to offer (brand awareness)?
You may have issues with bots following you.
As mentioned above, the standard way to check if you have fake followers is by looking at your Instagram analytics. If you notice an increase in the number of people who are following you or just see that many people are unfollowing you, then it may be time for a little investigating. And it’s not just bots that can cause this issue—bots can also be used to boost your follower count and show more engagement than your audience actually deserves.
If this happens to you, don’t worry too much! We’ll cover how to get rid of them below.
You may have a ghost follower problem.
Ghost followers are accounts that have been inactive for a long time. These follower accounts can be problematic, as they can skew your follower count and even have spammy comments on your posts. The best way to get rid of them is by unfollowing them.
You may lose followers for switching up your content.
You might also see a drop in followers after switching up your content or posting different things. If you’re no longer posting about the things that your followers are interested in, they may decide to stop following you. On the flip side, if you start posting about new topics and get good engagement on these posts, this will encourage people who like what you’re doing to stick around.
Loosing followers isn’t always bad, and in fact could be a good thing if those lost followers are either non-human or not interested in your content
Let’s say you’ve been working hard on your social media strategy, but suddenly your follower count starts to drop. You start to panic. Have you done something wrong? Should you just give up?
Well, maybe not. In fact, losing followers doesn’t always mean that your content isn’t resonating with people—it could also mean that they didn’t click the follow button in the first place because they’re not interested in what you’re posting! That’s why it’s important not to focus on follower growth alone; try looking at engagement rate instead.
Conclusion
I know that it can be frustrating to lose followers, especially when you have worked hard to build up a social media presence. But if you are losing followers because they don’t resonate with your content, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate what kind of account you want to run.