Creators across the Internet are asking a serious question that is too common for us not to answer: Why am I losing followers on Instagram? And it’s not the usual 1 or 2 followers unfollowing an account, which happens to everyone.
So, what’s happening?
We can only speculate as to the cause of your follower loss without looking at your account in detail, but we can let you know the leading reasons for follower loss and how to fix the problem.
11 Reasons Why You’re Losing Followers and How to Fix Them
Why are you losing Instagram followers? Let’s start with an obvious one that many people miss.
1. Your “Followers” Are Playing the Unfollow Game
The follower game is a strategy that a lot of real and bot accounts play. And the goal is simple:
- Follow a bunch of accounts
- Wait for people to follow you back
- Unfollow the new follower
Why? These accounts only follow profiles because they know that a certain percentage will follow them back.
What’s the Fix?
Unfortunately, there’s not a 100% way to fix this problem. We have observed that when obvious bots follow our accounts, they tend to not unfollow us until we follow them back. Stop following everyone new who follows you and looks like a bot account, and see what happens.
Once you follow one bot, more will follow you in hopes of you following them before they unfollow you.
2. The Direction of Your Content has Changed 🧭
I’ve seen this happen with some of the accounts I used to follow and decided to unfollow. For example, an amazing fitness influencer who was on hundreds of magazine covers always posted great fitness content.
He taught millions of followers how to train in the gym and then something happened.
Overnight, he stopped posting fitness content and only posted political posts. It was a massive change in content with a lot of strong opinions, and I know that I and thousands of others stopped following hiim.
What’s the Fix?
Stay within your niche when posting. You can post off-niche once in a while, but if you build up an audience that loves one topic, changing to posting on a completely unrelated topic too often will lead to followers unfollowing you.
3. Your Posts Just Aren’t That Good 😞
Every creator feels the pressure to post more. Increase your posts and hope that your reach gets a boost, too. If you’re posting too often and your quality falls, your posts may not be that good.
Instagrammers have a lot of creators they can follow; give them a reason to follow you.
You need to be honest:
- Are your posts good?
- Are you sacrificing quality for quantity?
What’s the Fix?
You are a creator and need to maintain a high level of quality to stop losing followers on Instagram. Fixing the problem will take work, and this starts with a complete content audit. Review all of your most recent posts and give them a quality score.
You’ll also want to:
- Review your analytics to see which posts perform well and which do not.
- Create a content calendar and stick to it to post the best social content possible.
- Poll your Instagram followers to ask them what type of content they want to see.
If you follow just these few fixes, you’ll see your post quality rise and the amount of followers unfollowing you drop.
4. Self-Promotion Has Become Too Much for Your Audience 📢
“Hey, buy my course or product,” is getting out of control on Instagram. You’ve built a following for a reason and can promote to your followers on occasion, but no one wants you to spam them.
What’s the Fix?
Again, the fix is simple and will require a content audit to figure out the ratio of self-promotion to all other post types. You want to determine:
- How many of the last 30 – 50 posts are self-promotional?
- How to lower your self-promotion frequency.
We recommend lowering your self-promotion posts and find the sweet spot for your audience. Trial and error will help you find the perfect promotion frequency for your audience.
5. You Posted Something Too Controversial
Controversy can be great for your follow count but it can also cause you to lose a ton of followers. You can be controversial about a lot of things, but when the controversy attacks your audience in some way, followers will flee.
What’s the Fix?
Judge every post that you create by controversy level. If you know that you’re going to offend your followers or break from the ideals and personality that you promote, it can cause major follower loss.
Imagine Elon Musk now claiming anyone with an electric vehicle has no brain cells. After building a major following as a voice for electric cars and running Tesla, he would surely lose some followers.
6. Content You Post is No Longer in Trend
Trends come and go. Eventually, the content you post may no longer be trending or interesting to other Instagram users.
Some niches and types of content just lose their popularity after a while.
If your niche or content type is on the decline, then you may start losing followers. The best way to determine whether this is the cause of your problem is to investigate the accounts of your competitors.
Are they losing followers, too? Has their engagement rate tanked? If so, then your niche may be on the decline.
What’s the Fix?
There’s no real fix here if your niche is on the decline. You may need to change niches. If possible, see if you can pivot to something that your current audience also enjoys, so you can keep them around.
7. Fake Accounts Were Purged by Instagram 🤥
Did you buy Instagram followers from a questionable seller? Instagram may have purged these accounts if they were fake.
Even if you didn’t buy any followers, you may still have a few fake followers, even if you don’t realize it. They’re called ghost followers, and tons of Instagrammers (even celebs) have them.
What’s the Fix?
For one thing, if you’re buying followers, make sure you’re using reliable and reputable sellers that offer real followers.
Otherwise, there really isn’t much you can do about losing fake followers. In fact, you should be happy about this loss. It’ll do wonders for your engagement rate and reputation in the long run.
8. You Haven’t Been Posting Consistently
How often are you posting new content? Once a week? Less often? Take an honest look at your posting schedule.
You want your content to be seen in your audience’s feeds regularly. If you’re not posting often, they’ll lose interest and may stop following you.
What’s the Fix?
If you don’t have a posting schedule, then that’s the first place to start. How often should you post? That depends on your niche and audience, but generally, you want to aim to post:
- 2 feed posts a week if you have 0-10K followers
- 3 feed posts a week if you have 10K-100K followers
- 5 feed posts a week if you have 100k+ followers
As for Stories? If you have a large following, you’ll want to post at least two Stories a week. Smaller accounts can get away with posting Stories a few times a week.
How can you make sure that you stay on track? We recommend:
- Creating a content plan
- Create your content in batches
- Schedule your posts ahead of time
Creating a plan and scheduling your posts will help you stay accountable and on track to reaching your goals.
9. Shadowbans Impact Some Creators
If you’re losing followers on Instagram, there’s a very real possibility that you may have been shadowbanned.
Shadowbanning occurs when the algorithm penalizes an account, making it less visible to users. It’s called a shadowban because Instagram doesn’t tell you about it.
Shadowbans can happen if you’re using spammy hashtags, people report you, or you violate community guidelines.
What’s the Fix?
Sorry, folks – there’s no easy fix for this one. Only Instagram knows how it enforces and removes shadowbanning (they’ve kept a tight lid on this).
You could try appealing to Instagram’s customer support and providing evidence that a report made against you was inaccurate.
10. You’re Not Engaging With Your Followers
Be honest – are you ignoring your followers? Social media is all about engagement. If you’re not engaging with your audience – responding to comments or ignoring DMs – then you may start losing the interest of your followers.
What’s the Fix?
Focus on building a community. Start engaging with your followers.
- Like and comment on their posts
- Reply to comments and DMs
- Start asking questions in your captions to encourage people to engage
Treat your followers like family, and they’ll return the favor.
11. Your Audience is Changing 👥
People change. Your audience is no different.
Over time, several aspects of your audience and their behaviors will change, including:
- Their age
- Their tastes
- Their preferences
If you’re not changing with them, you’ll lose these followers eventually. And if you’re not actively replacing these followers, you’ll see your follower count slowly start to decline.
Sometimes, the problem isn’t the content but the format. New content formats are introduced frequently on social platforms like Instagram (Reels are a great example). If your audience starts preferring these new formats and you’re not creating content for them, you may lose followers.
What’s the Fix?
First, you need to accept the reality that your audience is changing. Once you’ve done that, you can start investigating your audience and testing new types of content in hopes of re-engaging your audience.
Plus, at the same time, you’ll attract new followers.
Just make sure that you’re creating content that feels aligned with you, so you don’t lose that authenticity that attracted followers to begin with.
Should I Start a New Instagram If I’m Losing Followers?
No, not necessarily. It’s better to try creating new content or using other strategies to gain new followers, especially if you already have a rich post history. It’s not uncommon for Instagrammers to go through periods where they lose followers, so you may just be experiencing some growing pains.
Should I Post a Poll Asking My Followers What They Want to See?
Yes, absolutely, you should. Polls are a great way to engage with your followers, and asking them what they want to see will make it easy to create content that they love. If you create content they want to see, you’re less likely to lose them as followers.
