Why it's ok to lose followers

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Welcome to Social Studies.

Here’s the agenda for this week:

• brought to you by Growth Daily

• why it’s ok to lose followers

• want to work together?

• can I tell you my favorite dad joke?

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WHY IT’S OK TO LOSE FOLLOWERS

In 2019, I accepted a job at YouVersion, a Bible app owned by Life.Church.

They tend to hire more for cultural fit than talent. This was incredibly convenient considering I had very little talent to offer.

I was the first social media hire for the YouVersion team. Despite not having anyone dedicated to the platform, the English Instagram account already had over 500,000 followers.

You couldn’t ask for a better situation to walk into… great brand, great following, creative freedom. It was massive growth waiting to happen.

That Instagram account grew by over a million followers per year, two years in a row.

We eventually got the account humming to a point where it was growing by 4,000 followers per day.

But… we were losing over 1,000 followers every single day.

Why it’s ok to lose followers

When someone clicks the follow button, they’re opting in to a free trial. They’re not saying “We love your brand and want to be loyal customers from now until the end of time.”

They’re really saying, “That was a good post. I’ll follow and see what else they do.”

Nothing is for everyone. You’re never going to show up in front of only your ideal audience. Attrition isn’t just normal, it’s good. You don’t want the biggest audience possible, you want the most engaged audience as possible.

Naturally, if you’re getting more “free trials”, you’re gonna get more “cancellations” or unfollows. But… you’re going to get more “subscriptions” or retained followers.

You should be far less concerned about how many unfollows you’re getting and much more concerned about the ratio of follows to unfollows.

If I were to tell you, “The brand Instagram account that I run is losing 1,000 followers per day,” you’d think I should throw my name in the hat for “Worst Social Media Manager Ever.”

If I were to tell you, “The brand Instagram account that I run is netting 3,000 new followers per day,” you’d think, “This guy is either good at his job or incredibly lucky.”

(I’d like to think there’s a little of both.)

So what’s the magic ratio? Anything greater than 0? As long as more people are following than unfollowing, you’re moving up and to the right!

Gaining 1 follower per day isn’t going to shatter any records, but it’s also better than being in the red.

Obviously you want to be looking at trends. Do your followers take a big jump when you post a certain format of content? Do more of that. Do more people click unfollow every time you brush a certain topic? Do less of that.

You already know that.

In an ideal world, you’re looking at this as an equation not as a reflection on you and your work.

Easier said than done.

When you see double, triple, or even quadruple-digit number of unfollows/unsubscribes, it’s gonna sting.

I’m already dreading looking at the analytics of this email, because I know some of ya’ll will decide that my content isn’t for you.

So I’m preaching to myself probably more than I am to you…

It’s ok to lose followers.

Your content isn’t for everyone.

That’s actually a good thing.

-Jacob

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