In the age of social media, followers have become the new audience for any influencer out there. These followers are a goldmine for them to spread awareness about their brands and the products or services they provide. From celebrities, singers, even makeup artists to fashion bloggers, these individuals thrive on the additional followers they gain daily. But what happens if that changes one day? What if, instead of gaining more followers, they do you lose followers on Instagram?
If you are an influencer yourself, have you ever woken up to fewer followers instead of more? Has the thought, “Why do I keep losing followers on Instagram?”, ever cross your mind?
Well, you’re in luck! We’ve been able to decode this social media phenomenon. Down to the tee and have compiled the best ways and tricks to get your followers back. And also avoid losing them in the future.
What Could Be The Reason Why You Lose Followers On Instagram
Two words – shadowban!
Shadowbanning is the act of partially blocking or completely blocking an Instagram user and/or their content from the community. Making their content unavailable to the public, making people wonder why they keep on losing followers on Instagram. It does that by preventing your content to be shown under the hashtags you use in your captions or comments. And the cherry on top, this happens so silently that you would not be aware until it’s too late. Such as randomly losing followers on Instagram.
There are a couple of ways to know but the best way to do it is to manually find out. You can start by checking the hashtags you normally use. Check to see if your posts are still showing up on the feed. Also, you can try your obscure hashtags to best filter out your posts. You can also use a second account to verify this.
Though Instagram has already dispelled the idea of a shadow ban actually happening. But based on multiple reports by thousands of accounts, there’s probably one. The initial cause of this is the bots being used by Instagram users to not only engage. But also manage and automate their content postings. So if you’re planning to use such methods, we instead implore you to steer away from it. As the result could be catastrophic for you and your brand. Instagram has not only penalized users who do use bots by shadowbans. But also completely banning them from the platform at an indefinite time. This is also to curtail the use and spread of trolls, spammers, and flamers.
Dos & Don’ts To Avoid Losing Followers on Instagram
Losing followers is a bad thing on Instagram when you’re trying to build your brand from the ground up. You need to consistently create and post content on your account to keep your followers satisfied. But ever wonder, “why do I lose followers on Instagram when I post?” Well, there are 2 things that we need to discuss – posting too much and posting inconsistently.
Consistency is key when it comes to posting on Instagram. When you’re not consistently posting new content, your thriving audience will probably unfollow you and follow someone else instead. Though take caution when it comes to posting too much as too much of a good thing is always bad. You can schedule your posts in a timely manner. Say 1-2 posts per day or maybe at most 5 times a week. That should be enough to satisfy the hunger your audience is getting from your post.
Posting in a timely manner is a skill you really need to get a grip on. It is not enough to simply post a photo with a good caption and be just be done with it. You need to follow up on it as well. It’s kinda like courting. Do too little and you lose the interest of the recipient. Doo too much and it can be too overbearing.
Why do I lose followers when I unfollow? What to do about it?
Unfortunately, there is a culture that has been prolific on Instagram. Ever since the platform was launch – Follow for Follow. Catching people with the thought, “why do I lose followers when I unfollow?” What happens is an individual would comment on your post to follow him in return for a follow. The bad thing is, there are times that these individuals would unfollow you. The moment you follow them without you knowing and this goes vice versa. Once you unfollow them, you also will get the cold treatment.
One way to work around this is to simply not unfollow for at least a certain number of times. Say for a week or 2. This way, they won’t be able to notice the difference. And would need to manually check each one of their followers to see who unfollowed. Though this type of culture doesn’t really promote anything but a toxic exchange of unfollows and follows. It’s still worth taking a good look at the people you follow so your feed is more to your taste. And has less spam or redundant content posted on to it. Take a step back and really think about who to keep on following and who to cut ties with. Regardless of your decision, once you hit the unfollow button, or you mind end up losing followers on Instagram.
Conclusion
To lose followers on Instagram is the last thing you would want especially if you put all the work to grow it. Especially if you are an influencer trying to build up a brand and an online presence. With spam, bots, and unruly automation. The world of Instagram has been in turmoil with trying to distinguish which accounts are legit and are not. Sadly, those who are legit tend to get hit with shadowbans. And would need to start all over again from scratch. Losing followers, too, through inconsistent content posting. Slowly creeping as people get lost in the stardom and the craving for public affirmation. And that nasty Follow for Follow culture is also still a thing even until now.
If you’re still clueless about why you keep losing followers on Instagram, find out how the algorithm works. Truly, it’s needed to check ourselves from time to time. It might just save you the trouble.
