If you’re looking for ways to get and keep followers on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, then there are a great deal of blog posts and books written to help you. Some suggest an eye-catching design or a celebrity endorsement with the belief that such efforts will help retain followers. But what happens if you lose followers after you did everything the blog posts and books suggested? If you find people are hitting the ‘unlike’ button on your Facebook page or ‘unfollow’ on your Twitter account, it’s probably because your brand pissed them off. Not sure what you did? Then let’s take a look at 5 things you’re probably doing wrong.
You Don’t Say Enough
If you’re the type of brand that only communicates when the seasons change or when daylight time is saved, then your brand doesn’t talk enough. When it comes to social media, your followers have to know you are around and understand your personality; the best way to do get them to understand your brand is to be consistent in your communication. It may sound simple, but you need to talk to them on a regular basis. Whether it’s frequently throughout the day or sporadically throughout the week, you audience should have an idea of your posting time(s) and style. Unsure of how to do it, just start posting at set times and days, then continue doing it. Not that difficult, right?
You Don’t Say Anything of Value
So your brand has an opinion and you present interesting updates. That’s great, but are you saying anything valuable? If all you do is schedule informative or quirky updates in your HootSuite account but don’t provide anything valuable, then you’re missing the mark. Followers like your brand’s page or pay attention to your brand’s tweets because they hope to gather useful or entertaining information. They follow your brand because in your field you are a subject matter expert. If your company’s skills lie in motion graphics then you should be telling your followers everything there is to know about colorful pixels and animation technology. If you’re not telling them all the news and innovations within your industry, then someone else will.
You Don’t Give Them Anything Tangible
Aside from offering your followers great bits of information, sometimes your brand needs to give them something they can actually use. Giving out a simple discount code for your product or an actual product are great ways to get followers to pay attention to your brand. The best part about giving away a discount or a product is that the giveaway can be executed on your terms. You determine what people receive and how many receive it. You can provide coupons, products, or you can get creative and offer exclusive content from your brand. Even better, a giveaway can allot a product as a prize to a specific number of people, or you can be a generous Daddy Warbucks and offer it to anyone who follows you. Either way, giving away a product is a great way of saying: “I appreciate your interaction with my brand.”
You’re Letting Your Competitors Surpass You
When you do something wrong on social media, you may lose followers, but even worse is that your competitors will notice your loss in followers. This becomes a problem when they start doing a better job on their social media sites and your followers like their brands instead of yours. Since there are similarities between what you and your competitors offer (with differences of course), your competitors can merely take mutual strengths and get more creative or engaging with followers. Maybe their updates are more frequent, funnier, or they are offering something valuable—whatever it is, they’re winning. At this point, you must look at what you’re doing wrong. It could be one of the problems listed above, or a wicked combination of all of them—whatever it is, you should stop.
You’re Forgettable
Followers may look at your name in their news feed and ask, “Why am I following that brand?” I’ve done it a few times and when my answer to the question isn’t sufficient to keep me following the brand, I don’t. The fact that someone has to question your brand’s relevance in their news feed should hurt a tad. If you’re becoming forgettable on Facebook, put in the effort to be memorable. Communicate and engage with people to the point that they enjoy seeing your brand pop up on their feed. All you have to do is give them a reason to pay attention to you, and they will.
When communicating on social media, it’s important that you analyze what you’re doing in order to determine if you are pissing off your followers. If you are, then something must be done. You can communicate regularly or implement a strategy to make your brand memorable. Either way, if the revision to your social media efforts will leave you with happy followers then it’s worth the adjustment, right?
