Losing Twitter Followers: 4 Simple Things to Help You Reduce Unfollows

September 24, 2012 by Daniel Sharkov|

I’ve recently got an email. A reader of my blog was asking about his Twitter followers and why they were decreasing by the day.

In the email he said he was doing everything as it should be done – quality and relevant content was a priority. And although he was tweeting useful, in his words posts, he was still being unfollowed for seemingly no reason.

I bet there are a lot of you who are having the same problem. That is why I decided to put up this article!

The below paragraphs will help you discover four reasons as to why people stop following you, whether that is actually a problem and what you can do about it. Hope you find the information useful!

Should You Expect Unfollows in the First Place?

Basically the more followers you have, the bigger “the fluctuations” will be. You are followed by more people but also unfollowed by more people. Folks might find you interesting at first but they might change their minds after a while. That’s a normal behavior – you have probably done it yourself.

On the other hand you can’t please everyone. Even if someone’s following you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a tweet can’t put them off. While some might find a more controversial update interesting and retweet it, others might decide they’ve had enough.

What I am trying to say is that having tweeps stop following you is normal. Below however are some tips to help you limit the issue as much as possible:

1. Tweeting is Great, but Don’t Overdo!

As I have said more than once, the tweets you send reach far less people than the number of your followers. That is simply because folks don’t hang on Twitter that much and when they sign in, they don’t scroll all the way down to read everything they’ve missed. That is why many “marketers” literally bombard their followers with tweets every few minutes.

Yes, everyone wants their updates retweeted. However there are no guarantees even if you post the same thing five times. That is especially true if you don’t have a lot followers and tweet at the wrong time ( something I talk about in “ Social Media Traffic and 4 Reasons Why You Aren’t Getting It“) .

Additionally if what you overshare happens to be of suspicious quality, the chance of getting unfollowers is obviously bigger. And no, it’s not their fault – it’s yours.

2. Be Careful with Promotional Tweets

In blogging and social media, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money ( see “ 6 Reasons to Try Affiliate Marketing” for more information ). Be it on- or offline, when it comes to earning, a lot of people don’t know when they’ve gone too far.

Although I am strongly against posting links, pointing directly to affiliate products, if you ever decide on that, do it as rarely as possible. You might make a commission or two, but those kinds of links are for the most part referred to as spam.

What you should do is to write a review of the product and tweet that instead. That way people don’t end up on the product’s page and discover what it is about and why it’s good.

Of course that strategy should also be done with caution – don’t tweet more than a couple of times a week!

3. One Tweet a Week Isn’t Motivational Either…

From one extreme, to the other…

The idea of social networks is obviously to not only be there but to also prove you are there. It definitely isn’t for the shy.

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But there are those days… The flow isn’t going and you don’t feel like tweeting. It happens once in a while. The thing about procrastination is that once you start, stopping is easier said than done. And if you aren’t posting something, then with or without a ton of followers, you are simply not making progress.

Tools like ManageFlitterfor instance have a feature that allows you to find inactive tweeps i.e. folks who publish less than once a day and unfollow them. Such option wouldn’t have existed if there wasn’t a demand.

So I’d say you need at least 4-5 updates every day if you don’t want to see numbers declining.

4. Aside from That… Start Building Your Followers

Although that is not really a solution, if you have already considered the above tips, it might just be time to get some more followers. Fighting fire with fire is not always a bad idea.

Unless you are a celebrity, reaching 30,000, 20,000 or even 10,000 is a battle on its own. As much as we’d like to believe, quality content combined with conversations is just not enough. You also need a set of tools in order to gain momentum.

Tweepi ( see “ Best Twitter Tools“ ) and Tweet Adder ( see my Tweet AdderReview) are the two tools that can help you get more followers. Of course we aren’t talking about any followers but for targeted ones.

And do keep in mind that buying followers is a bad strategy – aside from serving as a social proof , those followers, no matter how much, are basically bots that nor click neither retweet.

Final Words

As you noticed I put a lot of emphasis on tweeting. How and what you tweet is basically what makes the difference between unfollows and follows. Of course you can’t satisfy everyone, so occasional unfollows shouldn’t bother you.
Now on to you! Are you being unfollowed? When do you decide to unfollow someone on Twitter? Let me hear your thoughts guys!

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