Trying to find the right balance between friendly and business whilst simultaneously replying to your follower’s queries and planning a good ad campaign?
The world of social media can be a difficult one to juggle and ensure popularity, however, we are here to help. Today we are going to help you with what NOT to do on social media with a countdown of the most common reasons why people unfollow.
Be Relevant.
You might be thinking that this is quite an obvious point to make and we understand that, however, it appears that there is still a huge amount of social media presence that is in fact not relevant to the company that they represent. In fact, 41.1% of people said that the reason they unfollow accounts is that their information is not relevant. If you’re posting to your personal account, by all means, let people know how your day has been or what you’re doing next, because the people that choose to follow you want to know that kind of information. On the other hand, the people who chose to follow your brand on social media, unsurprisingly, they’re interested in the brand! This doesn’t mean don’t have fun with it, by all means, joke with your followers and show that you have a lighter side but make sure that it is relevant, interesting and professional.
Stop Over-Promotion.
This will be one that you have definitely come across during your time on social media, promoting too much. We understand the way that promotion works and of course, it does work, whether this a is self-promotion of an item, a new line or even your company as a whole. Equally promoting other people in exchange for promotion for yourself; you promote them and then they in turn, promote you. The occasional promo goes under the radar of a follower or they are willing to see these kinds of things occasionally, but we also understand that promos can be a complete failure if it is in fact losing you followers as opposed to gaining them. Even worse still, even if you are picking up new customers you are losing long-term followers, people that have shown an interest in you for a long period of time which could be crushing in the long run as these are the people that you want to keep happy. In fact with 49% of people saying that this is the main reason they unfollow social media accounts it goes to number 1 on our list of annoyances that lead to an unfollowing. Give your followers what they want and keep them in mind when you’re planning your social media posts.
Posting too much can be a sure fire way of getting yourself unfollowed, you will be coming up on the newsfeed a number of times each period that people spend online. They will begin to see your name everywhere that they go online and therefore will be able to see you are posting too much. Even if your content is engaging or fun if people are seeing too much of a brand they will unfollow. People follow brands to see products that they like, but they are on social media predominately to keep up with friends and social situations at the time. Too much of anything can be too much, however, with 34.9% of people saying this is the main reason they unfollow brands online, this is quite a big one with regards to scaring your followers away.
Post Regularly.
Equally a lack of posting is going to lead to your follow count plummeting, while you aren’t in peoples faces like in the last instance this is going to make you lose followers a little bit slower. People will see your account appear on their timeline, recommended or even just browsing through their ‘following’ from time to time and when they see an account that they rarely see posting, it is likely going to end in an unfollowing. In a time where people are bothered about their following to follower ratio and the image that they portray online you might be an easy one to lose should you not be posting regularly enough and with 18% of people saying they unfollow accounts because they go silent, don’t be expendable be interesting and engaging.
Consistency is key, work out how regularly you want to post and stick to this vague structure. We don’t say tweet every day at 2:00 and 8:00, instead just that you need to ensure you are keeping your following interested in your business and posting too often or not enough is detrimental to your following. The way to get around this is not to worry, get used to what your fanbase wants, try different methods and regularities out until you realise what makes your following tick and then stick to it. While we are here telling you guidelines for how to work social media but it is essentially you trying to build connections with people which needs a personal touch!
Don’t Be A Robot.
This next point follows directly on about the importance of a personal touch. The internet is full of bots so if people are suspicious as to an accounts authenticity it will result in an unfollowing. You don’t need to have a rigid timetable where you post at the same time on the hour every day or every week. Equally, you don’t need a rigid structure to some posts format people like human interaction and therefore if you show yourself as a human this is going to be greatly reflected in your follow count. This has been covered in a previous blog post about gaining Twitter followers.
Use Sensible Humour
Here is one of the more subjective features of this blog, one of the main reasons people unfollow an account online is because they are trying to be funny when they aren’t with 32% of people saying this is a reason that they unfollow accounts. The problem here is people do enjoy humour just not from people that they don’t find funny, so how do you know if you’re funny? Truthfully we don’t know and we don’t think anyone knows until they experience someone’s humour. So again, this is trial and error, you’re going to have to find out what makes your following laugh and what they don’t like that you post. This means not being too full on, should you be going for a humour aspect to your posts, ease your way in and find out what your following likes. Being too full on could lead to an immediate unfollow, equally should you think humour is not your thing, I would stick to the information side of your posts to social media.
Stop Ignoring Customers.
In the eyes of the consumer, this is by far the worst of all. You should make your business social media profiles, your first and main priority. Each social media platform can highlight your poor customer service to thousands of people instantly. Because of this social media users want quick responses to their problems and they want someone helpful on the other end who is interested in the issue at hand, too often are people dismissive of customers complaints. 24% of people claimed that this is one of the reasons that they unfollowed a brand and with 76% of people expecting a response within an hour, we’re sure that that number is going to rise as it seems some brands can struggle to stay on top of their social media. While it might be time-consuming and frustrating, this is one of the main ways to keep your social media following happy. Expressing your concerns to the customer’s issues does go a long way.
Do you have any more helpful tips to keep your followers active and engaged?
Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
