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3 Reasons Why People are Unfollowing Your Brand on Social Media

by Article by Remington Begg Remington Begg | March 10, 2016 at 8:19 AM

Social media is much more in today’s world than just a place to connect with friends. When people follow a brand on Twitter, 72% of followers are more likely to make a future purchase from that brand. That alone is a reason to be present on social media, and there’s many similar surveys that echo the same message.

And since you are a savvy marketer and you know these stats, you started your social media profiles and began immediately racking up your follower count. You shared, posted, engaged, and everything else is takes to build up an audience. And then, suddenly- your number of followers starts dropping. They are leaving! Why would somSelf-Promotion.jpgeone start following your account and then change their mind? Actually, there’s a few reasons why this may be happening to you:

#1 Too Much Self Promotion

Are you using your social media accounts to pump out shameless self promotions? If so, that’s probably reason number one that people are leaving you. While a little self-promotion is a good thing (and the reason you’re on social media in the first place), too much is a big turnoff for consumers. Out of those surveyed, 45% said that they would unfollow a brand on social media because of too much self-promotion. Self-promotional content provides little value to followers, so instead  of doing that you need to be sharing things they will find entertaining and informative. And then, when your account is giving them value, they’re be willing to accept and even anticipate the promotional posts when they do come.

#2 Lack of Personal Touch

If your account feels like it’s being run by a computer, you could have people leaving because they don’t feel like they’re engaging with another person. Your followers expect engagement, and they expect it quickly. In total, 39% of respondents believe a brand is quite likely to engage with them on Facebook compared to 36% on Twitter. And roughly a quarter of those people expect a response within an hour of leaving a comment on a brand’s Facebook or Twitter page. So while a response is expected, it also must be genuine. In the same survey, over 30% said that they would unfollow a brand if they received an automatic message.

Too_Many_Hashtags.jpg#3 Improper Use of Hashtags

Hashtags have been falling out of vogue lately, and if you’re still overly tagging everything you can be turning people off in a major way. Hashtag missteps include anything from using too many hashtags in a status update or tweet to using a hashtag that just doesn’t make sense. In the beginning of Twitter, it was the more hashtags the better. That evolved to a few years ago, when the rule of thumb was three hashtags. People are experiencing “hashtag fatigue” and don’t want to see posts oversaturated with them anymore. Keep each hashtag at 11 characters or less, with only one or two in each tweet.

With millions of businesses using social media for marketing, it is an ultra-competitive market out there for getting  and keeping followers. With so many options of brands to follow, have actually become very picky- 50% of those surveyed by HubSpot followed only one to four brands on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You need to make every effort possible to make the cut! To get started, read our free eBook Mastering Social Media for Business today and lay the groundwork for a solid, profitable social media presence.