Everyone wants to see their follower numbers grow on Instagram. However, as a business, the quality is more important than quantity. It is extremely important to figure out why some users, that fit into your target audience are unfollowing you, but it is nearly equally important to know how to make people unfollow you on Instagram.
To some it might sound weird; why would anyone want someone to unfollow them. The most common idea seems to be, that the bigger the follower count, the better. In a way, this is true, but in this article, we will also be explaining the other point of view. But first, let’s see some of the reasons why your target audience might be unfollowing you.
#1. Boring Content
Content is the key, and especially in a medium as visual as Instagram, the content should be top-notch. People have followed your account as they feel it resonates with them and they enjoy your content.
However, if the quality of your photos and videos decreases, they will unfollow. No one wants grainy, unfocused shots on their feed. As a visual medium, every business account has to invest in great quality, to keep their followers interested. So don’t post the same photo over and over again, your followers have seen it already. Try to get some variety to your feed and make it beautiful and not looking cluttered. Curating your feed is truly important, it does not only attract new followers, but it also keeps the old ones interested.
#2. Inappropriate Content
This goes hand in hand with the first possible reason. As content is the key, you need to make sure it actually fits your business and won’t insult possible followers. Also, even though re-posting other users’ content can be a great way to gain new followers, it is not acceptable to not credit them where credit is due. Always give the original poster the credit they deserve – this also works in your favor, since tagging users get your post more visibility.
#3. You’re Leeching
In social media, as in life, it doesn’t work to only take and never give back. It is great if you have a beautiful feed with content that resonates with you and your target audience, still, you will not survive without engagement. When you write blurbs think about how you could get your followers to react to it by liking and commenting. Reacting and engaging content is crucial for a business on Instagram. The less engaging your content is, the lower it will appear on people’s feeds, and eventually not at all, thanks to Instagram’s algorithm. You need to keep your content in people’s sight.
Now you have content that people are reacting to and you’re getting tons of comments. Don’t be a leech and just keep taking and taking. It is the time to give back, which on Instagram means interacting with your followers. Answer their comments, comment on and like their content. Keep it personal.
#4. Follow-Unfollow game
When you see users with extremely high follower count and a tiny number on the following column, you can be sure that they are either some kind of celebrity – or then they’re playing the follow-unfollow game.
At a first glance, the game can be intriguing. An easy way to grow your numbers, just give a follow and after a short while you unfollow them again, even if they’re following you back. First of all, that’s just rude and eventually, the users notice and will unfollow you and you won’t gain them as followers again, even if they are the textbook image of your target customer.
The follow-unfollow game might gain you a bunch of followers, but usually, they are nowhere near your target audience. And if they are, they most likely will not convert to your customers if you’re playing the game.
#5. Spring Cleaning
Sometimes users do the so-called spring cleaning – they unfollow people that haven’t interacted with them or delete accounts that just don’t resonate with them anymore. Some feel like they want to gain more privacy and unfollow accounts that they don’t know the owner of and make their profile private for only family and friends, or they just want to unfollow their unfollowers.
Spring cleaning is a good thing to do every once in a while, even as a business. Here knowing how to make people unfollow you on Instagram might be a bit more subtle way to do it.
How to Make People Unfollow You on Instagram
The bigger the better, is the saying and most Instagrammers live by it. However, as a business account, it may not always be the best thing. You want your followers to be interested in what you have to offer, your products and services. So, if you have a lot of farmers as your followers and you’re an architect firm designing high rise buildings – you’re not really seeing eye to eye. Maybe you were designing gorgeous farmhouses before but decided to go another way and start with the high-rises.
In this case, you want the people that follow you, to actually be potential customers. Those farmers probably won’t be. Learning how to get people to unfollow you on Instagram will definitely help.
So, here it goes for public and business accounts:
- Go to your followers’ list on your profile
- Find the person you want to be unfollowing you
- Go to their profile and block them – Instagram forces them to unfollow you
- Check that they indeed, won’t show on your followers’ list anymore
- Head back to their profile and unblock them
When you unblock them, Instagram will not automatically make them re-follow you. The answer to how to make people unfollow you on Instagram is that easy.
