Yesterday I was cleaning up my Twitter account and saw the following:
1706 people had unfollowed me on Twitter in the past 30 days! ?
Most people would scream or cry.....but I laughed out loud! ?
Why wasn't I worried?
First of all, I consistently put out good content for my 26,000+ followers on Twitter and that's seen in the fact that my account grows steadily (see below). So even with this dip in followers in December I still see growth every month.
So let's look at 5 BIGGEST reasons people unfollow on Twitter...
(and uncover why I lost 1706 followers this month)
*UNFOLLOW REASON #1: You tweet too much (in a short period of time)
Does this sound familiar?
You only hop on Twitter once a week and when you do you go Retweet Crazy with everything you missed all week. This means you post 5-10 tweets in succession!
This is probably the #1 reason people unfollow on Twitter. Instead of clogging up your followers feed, spread your posts (and retweets) out throughout the day or week. You can use a scheduler like Hootsuite to help you do this.
*UNFOLLOW REASON #2: You don't add anything new to the conversation
People like to follow PEOPLE, not just "retweet robots". If all you do on Twitter is retweet the same articles that every other actor is sharing without ever showing us who YOU are, then you're increasing your chances of being unfollowed. So don't just share other people's posts, share who YOU are in your posts. THIS will help you put more ME in your social media.
*UNFOLLOW REASON #3: You Tweet all.the.time. about controversial subjects (And you aren't a comedian or political satirist)
During this past election season you may have been unfollowed for your political opinions. A good rule to follow is to always tweet about what you are FOR instead of what you are AGAINST. That allows you to still tweet about the things you are passionate about without losing your voice.
(These first 3 reasons are SUPER SIMPLE to fix and can definitely keep your unfollow numbers down. Luckily I wasn't guilty of any of them.)
They next reason people unfollow is...
*They followed you for a certain event/gathering which has now ended.
Maybe you acquired some new followers when you attend a film festival, last year's Comic-Con or another big event. What often happens is these new followers may not want to stick around if you're not consistently tweeting about these like-minded topics. This was one explanation for my HUGE dip in followers this last month. No hard feelings.
The last and BIGGEST reason people unfollow is because they are...
*Spammers OR have no manners.
There are a lot of people who follow you hoping you’ll follow them back (that's totally cool) but then they quickly unfollow you the next day if you don’t reciprocate (sooooo not cool).
OR even worse you follow them back and they still unfollow you the next day because they are trying to look like a super influential celebrity by hardly following anyone back.
REMINDER: If someone doesn't give you time to follow back, then you want them to unfollow you. #GoodRiddens. AND keep in mind the more people you're following, the more often this will happen....which is why I had 1706 people unfollow me (so in the words of Taylor Swift just...#ShakeIfOff).
Important lesson! If you aren't doing #1-3, then you're probably not doing anything wrong. Remember you can’t make everybody happy: You’re not pizza!
1706 people unfollowed me because after the event I attended was over, we had no mutual interests and the rest were spammers and had no manners (and that's why it was totally OKAY).
Keep finding like-minded people in the business to follow/engage with and you will see consistent growth on Twitter!
See you on social,
