Growing your social media status isn’t easy. It takes time, dedication, creativity, and occasionally a little luck. There are countless tips and tricks that can help you bring in new followers, but more often than not, people focus on new followers and ignore losing older ones. If you are losing followers as fast or faster than you are gaining new ones, it’s a clear sign to take a look at your strategy. There are a huge number of variables that go into why you are losing followers, but there are a few very important things to examine. If you’re guilty of them, it’s time to fix them.
What Are You Posting?
The first item to check is your content. Many companies fall into the trap of posting ONLY about their company and business. Social media is a brilliant way to share your company and products with a massive audience, but simply posting sales, brand images, and talking about your product not only removes any personality from your brand, it’s starts to look like spam after a while. Your company should be your focus, but you need to remember your personality is what you want to focus on, not just the product or deals.
One other content trap that can be distressingly easy to fall into is posting insensitive or irresponsible content. Of course, no one does this on purpose, but it is something that almost every company faces at some point. Whether it’s a story or ad that features a controversial politician or actor, something that is overly sexualized, or simply an opinion piece that lines up with political beliefs instead of just commentary on a product can all land you in hot water. A misstep can be remedied, but if you are consistently posting from an outlet or company that people are divided on, you’re likely to lose a large number of followers.
Who Are You Hearing?
Listening to your audience is something you must master to make the most of your social media. Chances are, if your followers start to drop, or your engagement tanks, you’ve stopped listening to them. Just like you have to watch your content to make sure it’s appropriate, you need to make sure that the content you do post matches up with what your audience signed up for. It can become difficult finding new content to post, but if you let that struggle drag you off the trail you set for yourself, it will absolutely show. Let your audience guide you; don’t try to pull them along.
Posting the right content is only part of the job with social media. If you aren’t going in and interacting with your audience, then you stop giving them a reason to come back. You don’t need a detailed conversation with every comment, but letting your audience know you’re reading their comments and that you actually pay attention will go a long way towards instilling brand loyalty and shows everyone that you aren’t a robot.
While most of your customers have a high opinion of you and your company, there will always be someone that doesn’t, and that means negative comments from time to time. If the comments are lewd or rude, delete them. It’s best to address the comments that are genuine. A little outreach can go a long way!
Followers come and go, but major shifts either reflect a huge success, or a huge failure. If you’re active, attentive, and creative, you’ll be able to see the problem spots before they happen. But if something slips, don’t be afraid to review your posts, and if you need to, revamp your entire social media process. The most important rule to remember is to have fun! That makes it easy for your audience to have fun as well.
