The Day I Got Unfollowed…. 

I had reached my newest follower goal, and I had a little party.  I was crushing it!  The next day, I got back online to keep up the good work and…I’d lost a half dozen of those hard-earned follows!!  Ugh.  I’d been unfollowed on Instagram!

Does your story sound like this?  Maybe this is you:

You finally hit 300 followers and you celebrate by having an extra cookie or glass of wine. You even posted in the #ThinkSocial Instagram group so everyone could be happy with you!  Then, you wake up the next day and have 298.

WHAT?

How did that happen?

How could anyone unfollow you?  You’re rocking this Instagram thing (or your cat, Fred, is rocking it). So you stalk, I mean, you pull up all the apps that can show you who exactly these people are who don’t like Fred. You decide to block them all and unlike any photos you might have shown some love on –

But WAIT!! Let’s figure out why this might have happened! It might not actually be your fault (or Fred’s)! We’ll get to that in a minute.

However, there’s a chance that it could be your fault.  Let’s look at those possibilities first and get them out of the way so that you can fix any problems you might be causing.

5 Reasons that are Totally YOUR Fault: 

1. Your content is boring.

This one is hard because we’re all sharing the most awesome content ever, right?  But maybe you’re missing the mark a little.

Ask yourself these hard questions:

Are my pics ugly? As a blogger, you’re competing with literally millions of other bloggers and you’ve got to be sharing amazing pictures to stand out!

Am I sharing too many product posts? If you’re selling something, you definitely want to share your products…but make sure you’re not over the top salesy. People want more than just products.

If you stop giving value, you stop being useful. In this crazy busy world, no one has time for boring, un-engaging content. They might unfollow you because they aren’t getting what they need or want from you!

2. You changed your focus.  

People followed you when you were a mom and friendly. They loved your mom-vibe and the adorable pics of your kiddos and the heartfelt advice.

Then you started selling a product and your feed filled up with posts about your product.  The friendly neighborhood mom vibe disappeared, and the people who loved that will disappear too.

3. You didn’t find your niche.

Yep, I’m going there.  It doesn’t matter that you are the expert of all the things. Yes, I know you know how to look stylish, apply eyeliner, cook tasty pie, swaddle a baby and throw great parties!

But, here’s the thing.  Not everyone wants to know about ALL THE THINGS!!  Maybe someone followed you because of your great eyeliner tips, but when the next 10 posts were about babies, parties, and pie, they realized this wasn’t their jam after all.

4. You post inconsistently or too often.

You thought you posted yesterday but it was actually LAST WEEK…so you post 5 times to make up for it. This is frustrating for someone who wants to follow you but can’t figure out when you’re going to share awesomeness.

5. You ignore their comments and questions.

No one likes to feel forgotten. It’s called social media for a reason.  People get on Instagram to see what other people are up to and to connect with them.

When you don’t connect back, you’re ignoring the social side of it and those who are trying to interact with you get discouraged and go somewhere else.

Are you guilty of any of these?  If you are, it’s time to sit Fred the Cat down and change up your strategy.  But, if you and Fred have everything on point, here are some reasons why it might not be your fault at all.

Is it me?

3 Reasons why it ISN’T your fault:

1. You became the target of someone’s mass following.

They followed you and expected you to follow back. You didn’t do that, so they unfollowed. There are a lot of accounts out there who use the follow/unfollow gimmick to get followers, but there is no authenticity in it.

If this happens to you, don’t sweat it! They weren’t interested in you or your content anyway. After all, you want quality followers, not quantity.

2. You noticed the increase of unfollowers after a giveaway.

It’s normal. Turning freebie lovers into true fans isn’t easy, but it is possible. You only have a couple of days after the giveaway to show all those freebie lovers how valuable your feed is. They will need reasons to stay, so plan ahead to keep them engaged!

3. Instagram is deleting fake, spam and inactive accounts.

This happens EVERYDAY.  There is nothing you can do about it, so don’t worry.  You’ll get that traffic back with REAL people if you keep working for it.

You got this!

Do You Still Want to Block Them All?

Sooo are you still on the hunt to block and unlike posts or are you ready to find your ideal client and kick some instabutt? Come Join us in the #ThinkSocial Group!

Have any of these things happened to you? Tell me about it in the comments!