If your social media followers keep leaving your brand, you need to find out why.
The ideal course of development for a social media profile—personal or corporate—is to gradually earn and keep new followers, building your audience from nothing to the hundreds of thousands (or maybe even more). Unfortunately, most brands end up seeing occasional loss of followers, and some brands fall into the backwards momentum of losing more followers than they gain.
So why would your followers leave you in the first place? These are some of the most common reasons:
- You broke character. People have come to expect certain types of posts and values from your brand. If you deviate too far from those values, you’ll alienate your followers.
- You’re inconsistent. You need to post regularly and somewhat predictably if you want people to stay tuned into your feed. Post at least once a day, and set follower expectations appropriately.
- You’re boring. How often do you experiment with new topics? How exciting is the content that you post? If you aren’t actively engaging your followers or keeping them interested, they’re going to leave. It’s that simple.
- You don’t appreciate your followers. Do you ever host contests? Do you ever incorporate feedback? Do you ever thank your followers or respond to them when they make comments about your work? A little appreciation goes a long way in securing retention.
- You’ve got competition. It could be that you’re doing everything right—but a new competitor is doing it better. Check your competition regularly to avoid this type of follower flight.
If you know why your followers are leaving, you can take corrective action before things get any worse. Learn to read your audience, and give them more of what they want, and your social media marketing strategy will go back to thriving.
