Why you lose followers on social media and how to avoid it

Losing followers on social media can be frustrating, but it's important to know that it happens to everyone. There are many reasons why people unfollow, but if you're consistently losing more followers than you're gaining, or if you're not seeing the level of engagement you want, you may need to take a step back and identify areas for improvement. It's time to take stock of the situation and make the appropriate changes to your social media marketing strategy.

In this article, we'll take a look at the 10 most common reasons why people unfollow and give you tips on how to prevent it.

Reasons why people unfollow you on social media 

You post too often or not enough

One of the most common reasons why people hit the unfollow button is because they're tired of seeing your brand every time they log on to social media. By posting too often, you annoy your audience by overwhelming them with content. Frequent posts can be perceived as spam, which can negatively affect your brand image. Also, a large number of posts can make it difficult for users to find what they are really interested in, which can lead to a decision to unfollow the brand so as not to waste time scrolling through the feed.

In addition, an excessive number of posts may indicate that the brand does not have a clear SMM strategy, which can scare off potential followers. It's important to post content regularly, but not too often, to keep users interested and not to annoy them.

Although an excessive number of posts is usually more annoying, not enough of them can also be a reason for unsubscribing. Users may lose interest in the brand and switch to others who post more frequently. This can lead to them unsubscribing from the brand to look for information in other sources.

To avoid unfollowing, brands are advised to post content regularly, but not too often, depending on your audience and goals.

You do not interact with the audience

Ignoring social media followers is a strategic mistake that carries risks and lost opportunities for a brand. Neglecting communication with the audience can alienate loyal customers. This, in turn, leads to a decline in engagement, negative feedback, and loss of reputation.

Ignoring comments, questions, and messages from subscribers gives the impression that the brand does not care about the opinion of its audience. This can drive away potential customers and partners, negatively impacting the brand's image.

Lack of individuality/voice/branding

Lack of personality, voice, and branding is a serious mistake for any brand, as it makes it invisible and unnoticeable among competitors.

Personality gives a brand a unique character, making it recognizable. Voice allows it to speak to the audience in a language that is close to them, forming an emotional connection. And branding combines all these aspects into a single coherent concept, making the brand understandable, clear, and attractive.

Without these components, a brand becomes a simple name, devoid of meaning and emotion. It cannot interest the audience in anything, merging with the gray mass of competitors. This leads to a loss of potential customers, lower sales, and the risk of disappearing from the market.

Therefore, investing in the development of personality, voice, and branding is not just a marketing gimmick, but a vital necessity for any brand that wants to succeed.

Lack of high-quality visuals

Social media visuals play an important role in promoting accounts, increasing audience engagement and loyalty. The audience evaluates a brand, product or service from an aesthetic point of view. When the choice is between your company and a competitor's business, the visual component often becomes a decisive factor. Corporate identity and unique design of posts can set you apart from your competitors and improve your company's market position. People are more likely to follow pleasant and aesthetically pleasing pages than accounts without a single style and visual concept.

You can hire professionals to create high-quality, original content. But those who don't have a big budget shouldn't be afraid, as there are plenty of free resources available. Your photos and videos should be technically well done.

You have not set goals/defined a strategy

The lack of clearly defined goals and strategy is a fatal mistake for a brand, as it leads to chaos, inefficiency, and missed opportunities. Without a clear understanding of what the brand is striving for, its actions become scattered, lack a clear trajectory of development and fail to produce the desired result. It's like a traveler without a map, wandering without a goal, wasting time and energy without any benefit.

An unclear strategy does not provide a clear understanding of the target audience, brand positioning in the market, and competitive advantages, which makes it impossible to create effective marketing communications and product strategy.

A brand without a clear strategy becomes vulnerable to any external factors, cannot adequately respond to market changes and competitors' actions, which makes it unstable and incapable of long-term development.

Thus, clearly defined goals and strategy are the foundation of a successful brand, its compass and map on the way to prosperity.

Excessive self-promotion

Excessive self-promotion can be a fatal mistake for a brand, as it drives away potential customers and damages the loyalty of existing ones. Instead of being genuinely interested in the needs of the audience, a brand that constantly shouts about itself seems intrusive and selfish. This creates the feeling that it does not care about people's opinions and needs, and that its main goal is only to enrich itself.

Constant promotional posts, intrusive calls to action, and excessive praise of your products or services cause irritation and discouragement. People don't want to be pushed, they want sincere communication and a sense of being valued.

Overuse of self-promotion can lead to massive unsubscribes from brand pages on social media, negative reviews, and loss of trust.

To avoid these problems, it's important for brands to find a balance between self-promotion and useful content that will be interesting and valuable to the audience.

Remember that people are looking for emotions, values, and meaning, not just products. Focus on giving them what they really need, and then they will want to be a part of your story.

You are overusing hashtags

Overuse of hashtags can have a negative impact on a brand on social media. First, it can come across as intrusive and unprofessional, making brand content less appealing to followers. Second, using too many hashtags can make your posts difficult to read and understand. This can lead to people simply ignoring your content, or worse, unfollowing you.

It's important to use hashtags strategically so that they actually help people find your content. Only choose hashtags that are relevant to your content and your target audience. Use them sparingly, with no more than 10-15 hashtags per post.

You do not interact with other users' content

Interacting with other users can help your brand reach new audiences and increase awareness. When you like, comment, or share others' content, it appears in their followers' news feeds, which can lead to more people seeing your brand. Interacting with other users can help you build connections, gain new followers, and expand your audience.

Buying subscribers

Buying followers is a mistake that can lead to unsubscribes from your brand on social media for several reasons. First, purchased followers are fake accounts, bots, or inactive users who are not interested in your brand, do not interact with your content, and do not generate sales. Their artificially high number distorts your real picture and misleads potential customers.

In addition, paid subscribers do not like, comment, or share your content, which leads to low engagement and rankings on social media.

The use of purchased followers can be revealed, which will damage your brand's reputation and make people unfollow you.

Finally, the money you spend on buying followers could be used more effectively for marketing campaigns that would lead to an increase in real followers.

Low-quality content

If your content is too far from what your subscribers expect, they will quickly hit the unsubscribe button. Low-quality content can lead to unsubscribes for several reasons. First, it damages reputation by making the brand look frivolous, unprofessional, or unreliable. This can happen if the content contains mistakes, inaccuracies, plagiarism, or is simply uninteresting to the audience. Second, low-quality content does not meet the needs of the audience, does not provide them with useful information or positive emotions. This can lead to people turning away from the brand and looking for more interesting and useful sources of information. Thirdly, low-quality content can irritate the audience, for example, if it contains too much advertising or spam. This can lead to negative emotions towards the brand and unsubscribes.

It is important to remember that the audience has many alternatives, and they will not spend time on a brand that does not offer them valuable content.

How can you prevent the loss of social media followers?

The best way to avoid losing followers on social media is to do the opposite of what makes them unfollow you. Consider the following top tips to help stop the loss of followers on your social media platforms:

• Create quality content

• Follow a clear strategy

• Publish regularly

• Use different content formats

• Interact with the audience

• Collaborate with other users

• Use relevant hashtags

• Analyze your results regularly

• Follow the trends

• Do not give up

Conclusion 

Losing followers on social media is quite common for brands. However, there are a number of effective ways to prevent excessive unsubscribes and retain your audience. The key factors are creating high-quality, interesting and useful content, clearly defining a promotion strategy, publishing regularly, using different formats, actively interacting with subscribers and other users, and using hashtags in moderation. It is also important to regularly analyze the results and adjust the approach in line with changes and trends. The key is not to give up and work hard to improve your brand's presence on social media. By avoiding common mistakes, such as excessive self-promotion, buying bots, ignoring the audience, and lack of personality, a brand will not only retain existing followers but also attract a new loyal audience.