Why you’re still loosing followers on Instagram

I recently had a digital detox and stopped posting on Instagram for two weeks – the results weren’t surprising!

My followers dropped from 2,400 to 2,333 (-3%)
And my weekly reach dropped from 600 to 21 (-96%)

Which looked pretty bad on the face of things.

But since then I’ve started posting again and am already seeing good growth and engagement on each post.

I finished up my beta Instagram group program last month and taught the group the fundamentals of making Instagram work for your business.

These entrepreneurs have dedicated energy and time to planning their strategy, making their bio irresistible to their target audience. They’ve chosen their visual theme and focus and have done their hashtag research. They’re exploding their engagement and getting noticed by influencers.

And yet when they stop posting they, like me, still lose followers.

 

So why is that?

If you’re doing all of the above, and have a beautiful cohesive feed with lots of value and engagement, then there is just one other reason your account isn’t growing.

This is something that’s out of your control (to a certain extent), but it’s something you need to be aware of.

Once you’re aware of this and start taking action (I’ll show you how), you’ll see fewer followers dropping off when you stop posting.

 

The issue?

#InstagramPurge

There was a famous purge of spam and fake accounts by Instagram back in 2014. And it appears that Instagram is trying to continue clearing out fake or spammy accounts.

So if those accounts were following you – and you don’t replace them with new followers when you post daily – you’ll notice your follower count start dropping.

This is not REAL people deciding to unfollow you.

Nope. It’s more likely to be fake accounts being deleted by Instagram in their fight against spam.

 

Let me show you what I mean:

Here’s a screen grab of a free tool, an Instagram analytics app I use.

This shows the actual accounts that had liked one of my posts, then just recently that ‘like’ was lost/deleted:

 

Here’s the list of accounts from whom I ‘lost’ previous likes. . . . and the reason why!

 

You see the user was suspended.

So what can you do about this?

This is something I teach in my program.

And mostly it’s about being genuine and avoiding all and any spammy practices. (Don’t buy likes or followers etc. etc.)

 

However, there is one thing you should be aware of and it relates to the hashtags you’re using.

Basically if you use a hashtag that is extremely high volume (think #food, #photo, #socialmedia, #travel and the like), then the chances are that a spammy or fake account might find you by targeting that hashtag.

Then they might follow you or automatically like and comment on your post.

Which means when they are suspended (deleted) from Instagram, you’ll think you lost a follower.

Who’d have thought there’d be so much to social media!