What To Do If You’re Losing Followers on Instagram

Losing followers on Instagram can be frustrating, especially when you’ve put time and effort into building your audience. If you’ve noticed a drop in your follower count, don’t panic—there are reasons why this happens and steps you can take to turn things around. 

Let’s dive into actionable strategies to help you regain lost followers and continue growing your account organically. Now, you will answer the question “why am I losing followers on Instagram?”

1. Assess Your Instagram Goals and Strategy

Before making any changes, it’s essential to evaluate whether your Instagram goals and content strategy are aligned. Having a clear direction will help you retain and attract the right audience. If you are randomly losing followers on Instagram, this guide is for you!

Define Your Core Objectives

Every successful marketer needs clear goals to build a brand identity on social media. Without defining certain objectives, you can’t act based on effective plans, and consequently, your effort and investment won’t benefit you. More than 50 percent of marketers find it hard to set certain goals and build strategies based on them. To overcome this challenge, it’s essential to Track Live Instagram Statistics to measure performance and adjust strategies accordingly.

Increasing brand awareness, lead generation, increasing sales, building community engagement, and driving traffic to the website are usually top social media marketing goals. But, more specific and measurable objectives can hold you accountable. For example, a certain number of followers, engagement rates, clicks, more traffic to your website, etc. So make sure you’re defining a set of more exact and realistic objectives.

The first thing to consider if you’ve once gained a noticeable number of followers on Instagram but you’re losing them now is to consider whether you’re acting based on your goals and strategies or not. You need to find out which of your goals has been neglected in your performance.

For example, if you focus mainly on sales, you can forget about building community relationships. In that case, your followers will drop after a while because you’re not connected to the community. You can measure this goal with some metrics such as shares, likes, comments, clicks, etc. Monitoring Instagram Reach is also crucial, as it helps you understand how many unique users see your content and engage with your brand.

Also, losing followers sometimes happens when you’re not connecting with niche accounts or sticking with a certain theme. Remember that your goals and objectives are all connected to your niche and your community. Any quick changes in the style of your account can lead to losing followers. 

For instance, if your account is related to traveling, changing it to food might have negative results. Stick with a theme for your Instagram that tells each follower and new visitor what your brand/profile is about and creates a lasting impression.

Here’s an example of a well-curated brand theme on Instagram:

2. Identify and Connect with Your Ideal Audience

Not all followers are created equal. To maintain a loyal audience, you need to attract the right people who are genuinely interested in your content.

Refine Your Audience Demographics

Use Instagram Insights to analyze your current audience. Look at metrics like age, location, and interests to determine if you’re reaching the right people. If there’s a mismatch, adjust your content to better appeal to your target demographic. Growing your followers on Instagram requires aligning your content with audience preferences and consistently engaging with them.

Engage with Accounts in Your Niche

Connecting with similar accounts and engaging with their content can help attract the right followers. Instead of trying to reach a broad audience, focus on building a community within your niche. Commenting on relevant posts, responding to DMs, and sharing user-generated content can boost engagement and follower retention. Additionally, leveraging Instagram videos can enhance your reach and engagement, as video content tends to capture more attention and encourage interactions.

3. Avoid Shortcuts That Drive Followers Away

While quick-fix growth tactics may seem tempting, they often do more harm than good. Authentic engagement is the key to long-term success.

Steer Clear of Fake Followers and Bots

Buying followers or using “follow-for-follow” schemes might inflate your numbers, but these methods lead to low engagement and credibility issues. Instagram frequently removes fake accounts, which can result in sudden follower drops.

Choose Growth Tools Wisely

Not all Instagram growth services are created equal. Avoid spammy automation services that engage with random users inauthentically. Instead, use trusted tools like Kicksta, which focuses on organic follower growth by engaging with real users in your target audience.

4. Refresh Your Content Creation Strategy

Content is king, and if you’re losing followers, it may be time to reevaluate your posts.

Create Content That Resonates with Your Followers

Your content should align with your audience’s interests. Use Instagram analytics to identify top-performing posts and replicate what works. Keep your visuals high-quality captions engaging, and ensure your brand message is clear.

Experiment with New Content Formats

Instagram constantly introduces new features, and incorporating them into your strategy can keep your content fresh. Try using:

• Reels for short, engaging videos
• Stories for daily updates and behind-the-scenes content
• Live videos for real-time interaction Diversifying your content keeps followers engaged and less likely to hit the unfollow button.

5. Reassess Your Posting Schedule

Your posting frequency and timing can significantly impact follower retention.

Post at Optimal Times

Analyse your Instagram Insights to determine when your followers are most active. Posting at the right times increases visibility and engagement, making your content more likely to appear on users’ feeds. Don’t forget to research the times to post on Instagram.

Maintain a Consistent Posting Rhythm

Consistency builds trust with your audience. Posting regularly (without overwhelming your followers) keeps your content fresh in their feeds and reinforces engagement.

If you are asking yourself “Why do I keep losing followers on Instagram”, try to revise your posting time according to your niche, location, and competitors. This can help you to adjust your timing with the recent trends among social users. Many social automation tools provide user-friend scheduling features by which you can optimise your social presence.

6. Revamp Captions and Hashtags for More Engagement

Captions and hashtags play a crucial role in discoverability and engagement. Improving these elements can help attract and retain followers.

Write Captions That Connect

A good Instagram caption can make a big difference. Use storytelling, ask questions, or include calls to action to encourage interaction. The more engaging your captions, the more likely followers will stick around.

Use Relevant, Trending Hashtags

Using the right hashtags helps your posts reach new audiences. Research trending and niche-specific hashtags that align with your content to improve discoverability without appearing spammy. A well-planned hashtag strategy can significantly grow your Instagram by increasing visibility and attracting engaged followers.

Hashtags make your content discoverable because they’re at the heart of the search algorithm of Instagram. If you want your brand to appear on the explore page for a specific search, hashtags are your best option.

There are many free online hashtag generator tools you can utilise to find appropriate hashtags for your content and to help create a hashtag strategy for your social media marketing. 

Try to search your audience and competitors’ most used community and industry-specific hashtags. Using these hashtags in your posts and stories will help users find your content easier.

It’s also good to create branded hashtags to build a community around your brand and entice users to follow it. Branded hashtags are as simple as your business name or the name of your products/services.

Work With Niche Influencers

More than 60 percent of marketers want to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2020 since it is one of the best means of building brand awareness. Influencers can encourage users to follow your account and gain their trust by demonstrating your authority. They can also help promote your brand and strengthen its identity on social media. 

If you see that your Instagram followers are decreasing, leveraging the power of influencers is a perfect choice. Choosing the best influencers to work with is important. Collaborating with Mega influencers may cost a lot. Instead, you should try collaborating with other kinds of influencers; micro-influencers who have respectively less than 100,000 and 5,000 followers are good options if you don’t have a considerable marketing budget.

Micro-influencers are niche content creators and usually have a much higher engaged following than larger influencers. When choosing an influencer to work with, you should make sure:

• You set goals for what you want to achieve (increasing brand awareness, website traffic, gaining more followers/engagement, etc.)
• Find an influencer that has the same values and goals because,e ultimately, you want their audience to be interested in what you have to offer
• Tell them how they will benefit from the partnership.

You can also use social tools like Awario and BuzzSumo to find niche influencers. In their database, they usually categorize millions of influencers in terms of age, gender, niche, location, and followers. This can greatly help you find the best option for your brand.  

Conclusion: Start Winning Back Your Followers

Losing followers on Instagram is not uncommon, but with the right adjustments, you can stop the decline and start growing again. By refining your strategy, engaging with the right audience, avoiding shortcuts, refreshing your content, optimizing your posting schedule, and improving captions and hashtags, you’ll create a strong foundation for long-term success. Stay consistent, experiment with new approaches, and focus on building a community that genuinely values your content.