You followed the advice to put your business on Instagram. You worked hard to gain all your followers. But you notice that little by little you seem to be losing all these followers. Your numbers are declining. And you ask yourself, “What the heck did I do wrong?”
We’ve lined up the major reasons why you could be losing your followers.
4 Reasons Why You Are Losing Followers
. The Great Purge
Once in a while, Instagram does a purge of all its subscribers. Most of these accounts that are removed are considered bots, spam or fake accounts. If you have unwittingly made use of the services of Interaction Automation Services, or Instagram bots that automatically interact with your followers through likes, comments and follows, then you must know that Instagram has been aggressively closing down such accounts. While these are convenient and give quick results, you want to grow your followers organically.
Another way to get purged from the platform is through insensitive and inappropriate content and comments. Simply post honest, informative, and fun content to grow your account.
. Too Little or Too Much
Check your posts. How often do you upload on Instagram? You might be barely posting, such that your followers lose interest and quickly forget you. It is through regular posts that your followers get to know you. They would probably think too, that you’re not serious about your business, or worse, that your business isn’t doing well.
Stick to a marketing plan, and schedule your posts. Spend some time each week to develop content. If you can’t, hire the services of a social media manager to help you.
On the flipside, you might be posting too often. It would be like that colleague at work who constantly pops up at your cubicle several times a day. It can be very annoying. In the same way, posting several times a day can be construed as being too aggressive and pushy. It’s like a desperate call to buy. Give your audience a chance to miss you.
Either way, you could lose followers. As they say, everything in moderation. Keep your posts to once a day or about 5-6 times in a week.
. Content is Weak
Go back to your posts again. Are your posts engaging enough? Do you follow a theme or does your Instagram account represent a hodge podge of various content? Are your captions related to your images? Are your visuals too jarring?
When visitors look at your Instagram grid, you want them to stay, and scroll through each picture. To get this, you need a theme. Your content, images, colors, and even typography should follow your brand. You need each post to be tied together.
You want your account to show off what your business has to offer. It’s just like a store’s visual display, it has to be cohesive, uncluttered and visually appealing.
Content is key on social media. Your captions should match the image, and should be engaging. Find out what your audience is interested in, and adapt. Your audience may be GenZ, but you are using terminologies and references that they may not be able to relate with.
With so many brands and users vying for an audience on Instagram, you need to stand out.
. Keep Engagement High
You have unique content, and your followers are drawn to your account. They like your posts, leave a comment here and there, and send you direct messages. But you ignore these. You’ve made it a habit to reply late and hardly acknowledge the comments left. This is one way to lose your followers.
Spend time daily to go over these comments and messages. Even an emoticon as a reply will do, or a quick, “thanks” will suffice. The important thing is to acknowledge or reply back. Don’t let the day end without replying to your direct messages. This is a potential sale. And if you wait too long, you will lose interest.
Takeaway
Even if you’ve lost a few followers here and there, don’t fret. There are remedies which you can apply immediately.
Get to work. Always remember that organic followers are still the best way to gain followers. You do this by creating engaging and authentic content. Take note of how often you post, thus, having a social media calendar should help you with this.
Check which of the reasons above affects you, and build your strategy around it.
