5 Reasons Your Instagram Followers Are Dropping – And What You Can Do About It
It’s not easy running a photography-based Instagram account.
While most photographers will tell you that social media holds no weight when it comes to your skills, it can still be stressful when your followers start to dwindle, especially if you’ve taken years to build a solid community.
You start asking yourself questions like: Are my photographs not good enough? Have I gone back a step? Are my photos simply not interesting anymore?
And these questions can begin to eat you up if you don’t investigate them.
And that’s exactly what we’re here to do. Below, you’ll find several reasons why your follower count might be dropping, as well as some solutions for what you can do about it.
You’re Thinking Too Much!
First off, the minute you start thinking too much about social media is typically the moment things start to crumble. If you want your follower count to climb again, just remember why you started using Instagram in the first place.
This is a fun platform to get to know new people, show off your photographs, create a photo book in 2 clicks, and engage with other photography lovers. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that, and when you start to think it does, you start to overthink the photographs you are posting.
You’re Oversaturating Feeds
Another reason why your Instagram followers might be declining is due to oversaturation. Not oversaturation in your photographs, of course, but the amount of photographs that you are posting on the platform. If you're posting too much, then you’re going to start clogging your followers’ Insta-feed. This can lead to irritation and, eventually, the same followers unfollowing your account.
You’re Not Thinking About When You Post
We’ve written a blog about the best times to post on Instagram and Facebook, so you can click on that if you want more details. But the truth of the matter is that there is a correct time to be posting Instagram pics. Make sure you’re falling in the right window and capturing your audience when they’re at their most attentive, and also ensure you stick to that window.
Your Quality Isn’t There Anymore
This kind of relates to the point about oversaturation. If you’re busy posting a chunky amount of content, then the chances are that your content isn’t going to be as good as it used to be. Instagram should always be about quality rather than quantity.
You want to show off the best of the best, and while you might only consider your ‘best’ to be one or two photographs a week, then those are the photographs you’re going to have to post.
You’re Going Overboard With Hashtags
While hashtags are a solid tool for increasing your visibility as a photographer, they can be a bit of a Catch-22. We’ve seen it countless times before. Photographers have a good follower count, and strong photographs, but they go and ruin it by adding a gazillion hashtags to their posts!
This only leads to your posts looking too promotional, spammy, and amateur, so make sure you reign those hashtags in and focus on being visually appealing to those who already follow you.
How You Can Get Your Followers Back
Now we’ve told you a few of the reasons why your followers might be falling away, it’s time to give you some tips to get them back. As a photographer, the first thing you should do is look at the photographs you’ve posted in the last month or two.
If you’ve uploaded to our photo book maker before, take out some of those photo books and compare them to the pictures you’re posting now.
Are they good enough by your own standards? Are you proud of them? If the answer is no, then you’ve immediately got your answer. Go back to doing what you do best, take your time with your photography, and only start posting pictures that you’re really pleased with.
Another way to get your followers back is to engage a little more with your audience. This is one of the reasons you joined Instagram in the first place, right? So go back to your roots, start replying to comments, comment on other people’s posts, and perhaps even get in touch with a few creators to collaborate with.
Anything that can get your followers excited and engaged will undoubtedly help your follower count. Over time, you’ll begin to see those numbers climbing again, but before that happens, you need to start having fun with Instagram again!
