Are you worried about posting content that you really want to post because you’re worried about what other people will think?
There are lots of reasons why trying to overcome this fear is so important. (As long as you’re not posting anything illegal or offensive, obviously)
We tend to think that an un-follow on any of our pages automatically means that someone doesn’t like us. We might question whether it is because we posted something that we shouldn’t have, we might hurriedly delete what ever we think it might’ve been that caused an unfollow. The underlying fear of ANY of these things is the fear that we’re not liked. Most of us believe that other people not liking us is a bad thing, but it is perfectly normal.
Think of someone right now who you do not really ‘vibe’ with, who’s interests or life style do not interest or relate to you in the slightest, so you have unfollowed them.
Did you wish for anything bad to happen to them? No you don’t. Do you think they’re a bad person? Do you want them to be upset that you unfollowed? No you don’t. In fact, quite the opposite, you’d want them to feel absolutely fine about it.
Try to think of this the other way around. It’s probably over 99% of the time NOT personal, so if you can get into the habit of remembering that, that would be a really good way to think about it.
People unfollow for so many different reasons and most of them are completely unrelated to whether or not they like you/think badly of you. They will show as an unfollow if they have decided to delete their Instagram/other social media account for a while. They might have gone through their account and decided to delete or remove anyone that they do not engage with. Their account may have been hacked or compromised in some way. All of these are absolutely nothing to do with you and shouldn’t be taken personally. As mentioned above, it’s more than reasonable to assume that there is no bad feeling intended.
Some of us have apps installed that tell us exactly who has unfollowed us. More often than not, if you check who has left your account, there probably isn’t even a message thread between you both. So you haven’t exactly lost a friend.
Worrying about follower numbers, content quality, whether or not you have a niche, wondering how others are growing so fast compared to you – all of these worries are holding you back from focusing on your own content and growth opportunities.
It’s also important to remember that when you post content that gets a lot of engagement, this means more people will be seeing your content. That includes people who’ve followed you for a long time but may no longer be relevant to whatever it is that you do. This may prompt more unfollows, which just means the people who are not your tribe are removing themselves. Brilliant. It means there is more room for people who want to actually see your content and engage with it.
I’ve added a photo of the app that I used to use to keep track of followers. It’s handy to check every now and then because it makes patterns so clear. People usually unfollow my business page when teething is no longer relevant to them because their baby is no longer teething. It makes perfect sense and now that I understand that ‘follower pattern’ for my business, it’s a whole lot easier to pay it no attention. These days, I am far more interested in engagement and genuine community.
Hopefully you will be now, too! 😉
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