Why Am I Losing Followers on Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, and since it began, the main focus has been on the number of “followers.” In fact, this is your follower count that brings you engagement, income, fame, etc.

At first, it may seem easy to gain followers on Instagram, but with the changes Instagram made on the platform in recent years, it becomes challenging to gain and keep followers on your account. 

Now that you know how hard it can be to gain followers, you can understand how it feels to lose followers on Instagram without knowing why.

There are various reasons why you lose followers, which we will examine in this article and provide helpful ways to fix the problem.

12 Reasons Why You Lose Followers on Instagram and How to Fix 

As mentioned, the follower count is one of the key metrics for every account, so if you are seeing more people unfollowing your account, you need to find the reason to avoid losing more followers.

In the following, we gathered 12 common reasons why you lose followers on Instagram, and knowing them helps you turn all your followers into loyal ones who will never tap on the unfollow icon.

1- Follow-for-follow tactics

This is one of the common methods among brands and businesses that want to increase their followers. They follow random accounts on Instagram, then unfollow them when they follow back.

This may help you gain followers but also hurts your account because you may follow irrelevant accounts that won’t engage with your account.

Finally, when they understand you are playing a follow/unfollow game, they will leave you with a bad reputation among your community and competitors.

How to fix this issue:

To fix this issue and avoid losing followers, you can focus on natural Instagram growth tactics rather than gaining more followers and losing them quickly.

To do so, you can stick to following Instagram’s algorithms, and try to improve your bio, highlights, host giveaways, etc.

2- You are losing followers who weren’t real followers in the first place 

Instagram wants all accounts to have real followers and real engagement. One of the most common reasons people lose followers on Instagram is because many of their followers are inactive accounts, bots, etc.

Instagram automatically removes all these followers from your account to avoid any false engagement rates, authority, and so on.

The good news is that this kind of loss of followers is a good thing because it cuts off any accounts that are among your followers but won’t interact with your content.

How to fix this issue:

To avoid such a problem, you can refuse to add bots and fake followers to your account in the first place.

Besides, you can take some time to analyze your account and determine these bots and fake followers, then remove them yourself.

3- Buying fake followers

Buying followers may sound like a great idea at first, but it can hurt your Instagram account really bad, so long story short, this is the worst thing you can do to your account.

There are more than 115 million Instagram users in the United States, which is a huge number with great potential, so why won’t you try to attract your audience naturally instead of buying fake ones?

Moreover, buying fake followers won’t bring any engagement and interaction to your account and can impact your visibility in the explore and home feeds, which means fewer users will visit your account.

How to fix this issue:

The simple solution to fix this issue is to stop buying followers and focus on growing your account by following Instagram algorithms, engaging with your current followers, collaborating with influencers, etc.

4- Your account has been shadow-banned

Being shadow-banned means your content or account has been reported by other users, and Instagram has shadow-banned your account. 

This isn’t among the common reasons for losing followers, but if you went from gaining followers to sharply losing them from one day to the next, it means your account has been shadow-banned.

How to fix this issue:

You may receive different solutions to fix a shadow-ban from experts out there, but the truth is that only Instagram knows how to fix this problem.

Therefore, to get rid of this issue, it is better to contact Instagram support and report what happened to your account so they can help you remove the shadow-ban issue and stop losing followers.

5- You didn’t notice your audience’s tastes changed 

If you believe that none of the mentioned factors happened to your account, but you are still losing followers, it may be because your audience’s tastes have changed, but your account hasn’t.

Note that people follow you because they like your content; however, they want to see you improve your account and content to keep them entertained. If you fail on this mission, they get bored, and easily unfollow you because there are more people out there who are sharing better content than yours.

Remember that it is the nature of Instagram to offer better content to its users, and it’s your responsibility to share quality content to keep your followers engaged.

How to fix this issue:

When you notice that a large portion of your followers are no longer interested in your content, it is time to do something about it. 

You can start testing new types of content, such as videos, images, stories, reels, lives, etc., to see how they interact with your new content.

Finally, analyze your account to see which content has generated more engagement and then keep making more of that content to reach more target followers.

6- Low engagement and interaction

As you may know, Instagram cares about your account’s engagement and shows your content to more people through the engagement of your content, so a low engagement rate will make it difficult for you to reach new followers and turn the current ones into loyal followers.

If you are looking to find out why you have low engagement, it can be because you are sharing low-quality content, which doesn’t add any value to the Instagram community.

Note that Instagram prefers to show engaging content on other users’ explore and home feeds, so if you don’t do anything about low engagement, you will keep losing more followers. 

How to fix this issue:

Fixing this issue is as easy as eating a piece of cake! The only thing you need to do is to spend more time engaging with your followers.

You can start by replying to comments and direct messages, interacting with similar content in hashtags, explore, and your Instagram feed.

7- Your content niche is in its decline phase

When your Instagram niche is in the decline phase, it means the majority of people who used to be interested in your content niche are no longer fans.

Therefore, you need to keep engaging with your followers to understand their feedback and interests about the topic you are working on to deliver better content.

How to fix this issue:

The first thing you need to do when you feel your efforts are not worth it is not to stop posting and engaging with your followers. 

You can try to focus on new niches and create related content that you think brings more followers to your account and keep the current ones.

8- You are sharing too much promotional content

One of the best ways to engage with your followers and attract more target audiences is to share promotions and brand collaborations. However, you must ensure you won’t share too much promotional content because it has a negative effect on your account and leads to losing followers.

Most people get annoyed by constantly seeing promotional content on their Instagram feed, so it is better not to overshare such content; you can do it once in a while to get the best results of collaboration or promoting a product or brand.

How to fix this issue:

To easily fix this issue, you can strike a balance between sharing organic and promotional content; however, it is better to stick to sharing organic content rather than promotional.

Another way you can do this is to work with influencers to set up more natural promotions, partnerships, and collaborations.

9- You don’t use Instagram’s latest features

We all know that Instagram is constantly changing and offers new features that help its users gain more followers while increasing engagement rates.

That is why you need to use Instagram’s new features and avoid just using one type of feature because it leads to a loss of followers.  

As an example, if you keep just sharing one type of content and ignore using a trend feature such as Reels, you are most likely to lose your followers as Instagram won’t show your content to new people.

Therefore, ensure you are keeping your knowledge about Instagram features updated and use them while they are delivering positive and bright results.

How to fix this issue:

Try to stay alert when Instagram launches a new feature or update, and use each new format that gives you more reach and engagement.

10- Your Instagram posting schedule is off

 

Note that Instagram is always watching your activities on the platform, which means if you post too much in a short time, it may detect you as a bot and may restrict your account.

Moreover, if you don’t post in a while, your followers may think you are not active on the platform anymore and start unfollowing you.

How to fix this issue:

The best thing you can do is stick to a weekly or monthly plan for sharing content to strike a balance and avoid oversharing or not sharing.

Besides, you can use Instagram’s “schedule content” feature to set a specific time for posting your content, and it will automatically upload your post.

11- Using automated likes and comments

Most people use automated likes and comments to respond to their followers and think this is the best way to engage with people; however, the truth is that most users don’t welcome automated responses because they want you to engage with them personally.

Therefore, if you keep using such bots to answer comments and DMs instead of you, it may be one of the main reasons you are losing followers.

How to fix this issue:

The best thing you can do to avoid this problem is to spend more time engaging with your followers.

You can patiently read their comments or messages, respond to them, like their comments or posts, and leave related comments for them, not just simple emojis.

12- Uploading irrelevant or low-quality content

If you want to reach more target followers, you need to share relevant, high-quality content on your account. 

One of the common mistakes of most accounts is that they share whatever content they think helps them to hit their targets without ensuring that their followers like it.

Another important thing that is causing the loss of followers over time is sharing low-quality content. 

Always remember to get the best results on Instagram, you need to share high-quality content because Instagram is a perfect place for visual content, and people expect you to share quality videos, reels, stories, etc.

How to fix this issue:

It is better to stay focused on the quality of what you share instead of quantity; when you share high-quality content, you have a better chance of getting new followers. But when you keep posting without caring about its quality, you are most likely to lose your audience.

It is true that consistency is an important factor on Instagram, but you need to follow a strategy that helps you share quality content while staying consistent.

FAQs

1- How can I stop losing followers on Instagram? 

One of the best ways to avoid losing followers is to engage with them by responding to all comments. To get the best results, you can leave thoughtful comments on others’ posts as well.

2- Is Instagram removing fake followers?

Yes, buying Instagram fake followers or bots is against Instagram policies, and this platform regularly removes all suspicious accounts from your followers list.

3- What is an Instagram follower glitch?

It means losing followers in a few days, and then you will see you are getting new followers again.

Conclusion

Instagram is one of the best social media platforms to share visual content to reach new followers. We all know that follower count is a key factor on Instagram and greatly impacts your engagement rates.

No one wants to lose even one follower on Instagram, so you must ensure your account is safe and secure, you are engaging with your followers, you are posting based on an accurate schedule, etc.

However, losing Instagram followers is a part of being active on the platform, but there are different tactics that you can use to reduce follower loss.

About the author

Emi Daniel

Emi Daniel is a content writer at Social Tradia, where he writes clear, useful content that helps readers find what they need. Outside of work, he enjoys gaming and coding.

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