So, okay. I’m one of those weird people who likes to torture myself by doing things like signing up for emails/notifications that alert me whenever I have an unfollower. You see, I like knowing where I stand with someone. I want to know who follows and unfollows me.
While I’m thankful to have earned several new followers recently, I’ve also noticed that some of them have gone. I do understand that some of my unfollowers may have been those weird spammy accounts with infinite followers that just follow you hoping you follow back and unfollow you when you don’t. And of course there are some who just follow for the incentive (re: giveaways) and then unfollow when there isn’t one anymore. But when a fellow blogger you know, follow, have conversed with and look up to unfollows you, how would you feel? Personally, I’d get anxious.
No, I’m not anxious because my follower count just dropped. I get anxious because I tend to think: WHY? Why did he/she unfollow me?
I even go through some anxiety stages, namely:
The Denial Stage
Did they really unfollow me?
- Maybe they hit the unfollow button by accident!
- Maybe it’s one of those rare cases *insert social media platform* suddenly unfollows people!
- Maybe they deleted their account!
- Maybe they’re moving to a new one and are following me there instead! *checks new followers*
The Acceptance Stage
Okay, so they probably really unfollowed me. This is terrible, ack.
What did I do?
- Did I do anything to drive them away?
- Did I post too much?
- Did I promote myself too much?
- Were my posts nonsensical or boring?
- Maybe I my post had a typo/grammatical error and they were so turned off by it?
- Am I that lame?
- Did I say anything possibly offensive?
What didn’t I do?
- Did I lack significant updates?
- Did I not interact with them enough?
The Moving On Stage
Their loss. Ha, they’ll miss me for sure. I’ll move on now, after I write a ranty post about this.
Again, like I said, I’m weird.
But I wanna know, am I alone in this? Or have any of you felt the same way? Have you had unfollowers? Do you feel anxious about them? Do you find it easy to move on or do unfollowers worry you? Talk to me!
42 Responses
I don’t think I get that bothered when someone unfollows me. I do check in on my email subscriptions now and then, and while it does make me sad to see someone unsubscribe (or not even opening the emails), I kind of brush it off.
I do, however, slightly freak out when my page views noticeably go down for a day or two (or more). :P
Good for you, then, Ashley! I think I’m not really that cosncsious when it comes to email subscriptions. I do tend to unsuscribe to most of them sometimes too. They’re relatively easier to brush off, yes. I check my pageviews often, but I understand when they go down. That usually happens when I don’t have something new on the blog so I guess I’m okay with it. :)
*On Twitter* I know I can be (or, am) very irritating at times (or, most of the time). So, I guess it doesn’t bother me that much. I lose followers, I gain new ones. And I’m really busy to do that—keep track of who follows and unfollows me. :) Well, I guess if someone really is my “follower”, no matter how loud I could get on a social networking site, s/he wouldn’t unfollow me (I hope). XD
And, you’re like one of the most “decent” and “proper” people/bloggers I know. At least you have a separate Twitter handle for your blog. :) I can’t believe people unfollow you!
So, don’t feel very bad about it, Hazel. DFTBA!
Kyle @ The Selkie Reads Stories
What, you’re not irritating at all! Whoever thinks so clearly does not understand book feels! It’s not that I take specific time to actually check followers- like I said I have this notification thing and I just browse through it every now and then. You’re totally right on that note though!
Aww thanks, Kyle. I guess I am decent enough- although that sometimes translates to boring and is probably a reason why some have unfollowed. Possibly.
I’ll try not too worry too much. Thanks, Kyle! *nerdfighter handsign*
Yes, I feel the same way too. It’s like did I do something wrong?
It’s pretty frustrating, really. But can’t do anything about it. If they unfollow my blog, then fine! Just like what you’ve said “It’s their loss”. Hahaha. :)
Hey, April! So nice to see you on my blog! So glad somebody understands! Not that I’m frustrated they unfollowed me really, just frustrated to understand WHY. Haha, true! They’re missing out on all the awesomeness. ;)
I think every has been there at some point. I do feel a bit…confused when I see my followers count drop. I wonder what have I done wrong?? I guess I’m okay if those who unfollow me are those spammy accounts but I’ll usually just look at the bright side. Hey, at least my bloggy friends are still following me! I think it’s better to have less but loyal followers and a ton full of spammy accounts… :D it’s totally normal to feel like this but just try to look at the bright side ;)
I think some people don’t care much about this. But yeah, I guess there at least must have been an instance they felt anxious about unfollowers. I’m pretty fine with spam accounts unfollowing me- in fact, I’d like that. Having ‘ghost’ followers makes me feel weird anyway. That’s nice- that you see look at the bright side. LESS BUT LOYAL!! Love that. It should be a slogan. ;) Thanks for the advice, dear!
I don’t ever notice when people unfollow me. I used to care about it, but I’ve reached a point in my blogging career where I don’t take anything that happens online personally. I used to wonder what I did wrong to make them unfollow me, but now I don’t pay any attention to who follows me and who doesn’t. I can totally understand why you do, because it is difficult to not be anxious about it, but I’m sure you’ve never done anything to make someone unfollow you, and if someone has, well then maybe they just weren’t meant to be a part of your life/blogging, you know?
I admire you for that, Rachel. I guess I haven’t reached that point yet. Maybe I’m still not so used to this community after all. Thanks for understanding though! I’m glad that even someone who doesn’t share my sentiments (or at least, not anymore) can get how I feel. And what you said, about my unfollowers not really meant to be a part of my blogging life, that kinda lessens my anxiousness about this whole issue. Thank you! :D
I don’t have any notifications set up for my email followers for this reason. I try not to play the numbers game as much as possible so adding that in the mix would be so much pressure. I do have an unfollowing notification set up for Twitter, though. I try to follow back every book blogger who follows me on Twitter but sometimes I miss a few; if I see them unfollowing me on Twitter, then that’s when I tend to catch the ones I’ve missed!
Like I said, I’m weird. I’m not much into the numbers as well, but mostly I’m just anxious about the reasons the person unfollowed me. I’m mostly just talking about twitter too, actually. And yeah, that happens! Then I wonder.. “Should I follow him/her even though he unfollowed me already?” I’d be anxious all over again.
I don’t even know when someone unfollows me, haha. So it’s probably best that I stay away from those things, because I don’t want to feel bothered by it. I blog because of the fun – and that is still the most important aspect of blogging to me :) So a few followers less, I can live with that. As long as I get comments and can interact with my favorite bloggers, I’m happy!
Ack YES! I so go through those stages when someone unfollows me, even if I have no idea who it was. I question myself just like you do, and then I kind of get depressed. So you’re not alone! *bloggers who are not alone hug* I find it really hard to move on, but once I do I guess I’m alright. *is sad from thinking about unfollowers* :/
I never knew you could sign up for the unfollowing bit! It makes me want to do the same, too, because I feel exactly the same way you do. I don’t think that “I-know-you-and-you’re-supposed-to-be-nice-and-why-did-you-unfollow-me” thing has happened to me before, though ugh. That definitely sucks big time. My current blog is still relatively new, so I don’t have any of those spammy followers, but with my old blog — back in Blogger — I had people unfollowing me all the time, and it wasn’t only discouraging. It was ANNOYING. Annoying because I had to keep updating my NetGalley and Edelweiss stats, and I was such a paranoid blogger back then that publishers would see my old stats before I updated them, and think I was lying, so they wouldn’t approve me.
I know.
But mostly, it’s really discouraging. I went through the same stages you did, though I think I sped through them a little faster than I expected. I’d be like, “Oh no. They probably just accidentally did that.” to “Maybe that post WAS dumb, after all…” to “Oh, well. Whatevs.” in less than an hour. Or I’d forget about it. So no, you’re totally not weird at all! But in that sense, I guess I find it easier to move on. It hurts initially, but you forget about it and carry on with your blogging career.
Don’t feel bad, Hazel! It’s not the follower count that matters; it’s the people who take the time to visit and comment on your blog, ultimately. Great first discussion post! <3
Lol this is me. It’s not so much that I hate not having a certain amount of followers, it’s mostly that I want to know if I said/did anything to make someone upset.
Who.unfollowed.me gives me anxiety. Ugh.
Great post!
THIS POST = TOTALLY ME. YOU ARE NOT ALONE, HAZEL. Whenever somebody unfollows (may it be from Bloglovin or Twitter), I get incredibly disheartened for a few minutes. Like you, I wonder what went wrong. Is it my posts? Am I not interesting? Did they not like my personality? I eventually get over it. We are awesome and it’s their loss. There’s no point in dwelling on it.
I don’t sign up to those things that tell me because I don’t want to torture themselves, all I can say is that those who unfollow you will miss you and are missing out on heaps so don’t worry, is there loss!
I usually don’t notice unless it’s someone that actually comments on my blog really often. You can quiz me right now and I don’t even know how many followers I have! I’ve never thought about this before so it doesn’t really bother me. But look on the bright side! At least you’ve made many friends and a lot of loyal followers who love you dearly <3
When I first got on twitter, I get a bit butt hurt when someone unfollows me, but now I don’t give a single nickel! Lol. I honestly don’t care anymore. I totally understand if people don’t like my tweets or if I lack something because I too unfollow some people on Twitter. I unfollow the ones who haven’t been active for a long time or when I don’t like what they are tweeting.
Dude, I feel you. When I see an unfollower, I’m all like *cue the dramatic music* WHYYY??! WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE SUCH A TRAVESTY? But after a few days I’m like “Pfft. You’ll miss me.
Awesome post :D
Jackie
I remember having almost the same conversation with Debby yesterday. I completely understand what you’re feeling right now because although I haven’t subscribed to Twitter Followers Monitoring accounts, I am always up to date with the numbers of my followers. And it’s always annoying to see them fluctuate. Argh!
But I don’t think I would go to such extent of of subscribing to this notifications stuff. I would prefer to not know my unfollowers because it would really make me feel awkward. What if there would come a time that I will get to meet him/her again and I knew what she/he did? I think that would affect on how I will interact with him/her. I think it would make “plastic.” And I seriously do not want to be reduced to that. So just to be safe, I think I’m much better not knowing my unfollowers.
While it is very annoying, you shouldn’t be saddened with these things. What’s important are those people who took the time to visit and comment on your blog. You may chastise me for this but I still prefer commenting as a way of interaction rather than randomly tweeting to other bloggers. Yeah. I really have confidence issues. *sighs*
Great post, Hazel!
I’m definitely a lot like you. I am not signed to any service that tells me when someone unfollows me because I get really anxious. I jump right into the WHAT DID I DO TO MAKE THEM UNFOLLOW? stage. It definitely gets me down. Enough that I wish that someone could write a note and tell me why they did it before/after unfollowing, so I could learn from it and better myself and my blog. That doesn’t happen, though, so I’m left to over think and obsess by myself. I just learned to try and keep away from any place telling me my following number, cause it doesn’t do me or anybody any good, you know?….
I don’t really track my blog followers(I check once or twice a month to update any stats on EW/NG, but on the whole I pay more attention to pageviews), but I definitely sometimes feel this way about twitter. Not as much anymore though! I expect some people to unfollow and some new people to follow, so as long as my twitter follow count doesn’t drop drastically by like fifteen people in one day, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I don’t worry about it.
Pageviews, though. . . blog pageviews are where I get a lot of any “unfollowing” anxiety. When I see my pageviews steadily decreasing over the course of a few days is when I get that anxiety feeling. I’m learning not to bother with it so much, but it can be difficult!
Since I have my blog for quite a short time I don’t have many followers at all and what follows is that I didn’t experience unfollowers as well. But I think that’s completely normal to get anxious Hazel! After all there COULD be a reason why they unfollowed you (I’m not helping am I?) but also they could’ve unfollowed you just because they’re daft ’cause your blog is absolutely fab. BUT if I had unfollowers I would be probably annoyed the most but that’s just me :p
It’s totally normal to be bummed when someone unfollows you! I barely notice when I have unfollowers. I mean, I put myself in their place – if I’m not interested in someone, why continue to follow them? Doesn’t make sense.
I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong to make them unfollow you (: And if you’ve ever accidently said something that insulted them, the right thing is to tell you about it, but everyone reacts differently, I guess.
But don’t worry! Even if someone unfollows you, think of all the new followers you’ll get soon ;)
Sometimes I get hyper aware of unfollowers. And then I think “dang, what am I doing wrong? Am I that boring?” But then the sentiment passes. I try not to look at those because it’ll drive me crazy. I used to be like that more for Twitter than my blog though. But there are a lot of rando Twitter accounts that’ll follow you.
Hmm… I don’t think I’ve been that thorough with regards to my thoughts on unfollows. Haha! Personally, I don’t really feel much a loss when someone unfollows me, because I like to turn the loss around– it’s theirs, not mine. Haha! But then again, I don’t experience unfollows that much in the first place. Thankfully enough, my numbers don’t fluctuate. I’ve always been more concerned with views and comments, the latter especially. Whenever I post something that doesn’t receive much love through comments or views — that’s when I start thinking I’m doing something wrong. But yeahh, we all have these little episodes! It was kind of a nice sort of change to see you open up about this :) Great topic Hazel :D
My two cents as a follower/subscriber:
I sometimes unfollow people on Twitter because they spam my feed…as in really spam it with 4-5 tweets per day. It would be okay if it’s something relevant to me, but most of the time it’s just mundane things or RTs or stuff that plainly doesn’t interest me. I try to be conscious of my tweeting activities because I don’t want to annoy the people who follow me, and simply because I don’t want the same thing done to me.
With regards to subscriptions like emails, newsletters, etc., I try to tweak the settings so that I don’t get feeds on a daily basis. To be honest, this is my first time subscribing to Bloglovin and I get notifications every day. I’m still trying to find the settings to fix that, but no luck so far.
On people who unfollow me:
It really doesn’t bother me that much. Well, I haven’t received unfollows mainly because I don’t overtweet and I try to be conscious of what I post. But having worked on social media analytics, if you’re really into promoting your blog or whatever brand you have, it’s good that you are aware of these activities, but it’s also important to have relevant content for your followers. Content is king, as they say. :)
I notice my numbers going up or down, but I don’t know who is unfollowing so it doesn’t bother me that much. I like to think of it as being someone who only followed me to get me to follow them (either a blogger or an author). I think it would bother me more if I knew who it was and it was someone in the community I really like.
Yeah, it would be much easier, not knowing who. I’m not into self-torture or anything but a part of me likes knowing who unfollowed me. Partly because I want assurance that the people who unfollow me are strangers I don’t care much about. But when it’s someone I know, that’s when this whole ordeal stings.
Can you tell when someone unfollows you? I mean, I guess you can see your follower count fluctuating, but I don’t specifically know who it is that unfollows. I guess I’m not really THAT bothered by it as long as it’s not one of my close blogging friends. I’d be kind of upset if one of my blogger friends unfollowed- and yeah I’d definitely be all “WHY!?” *runs off crying*
It’s really weird, because my Twitter follower count doesn’t seem to increase even when I get new followers…so it’s like every time I get a new follower, an old follower unfollows. Weird haha.
Yep, you can! I subscribed to this thing, haha. Well, I haven’t experienced having a close blogger friend unfollowing me, but I’ve been unfollowed by a fellow blogger I looked up to and that is ultimately the root of this angsty post. :'(
Ooh, that is weird. Maybe the count is just stuck?
Hmm, I’ve never worried much about my followers’ numbers, partly because I don’t know how much they are :p I don’t like it when my followers number on Twitter decreases though. And yeah, signing up to email notifications of your unfollowers can be pretty hard, but here’s my two cents: I’ve unfollowed blogs before not because I didn’t like their content, but because I didn’t stop by much. I know, it sounds weird, but I have to be acquainted with a blog really well so I can comment on it (which is why I have limited amount of blogs I follow, smh). And sometimes, I’d go through those cleaning manias where I’d unfollow a few blogs that aren’t for me, only to discover I’d unfollowed a friends’.
You know, I’d say don’t worry about it. There are a hundred thousand reasons why someone might unfollow you. And seriously, who’d unfollow a blog with such a cute design as yours?
I don’t know why unfollowers bother me much. I mean, I’ve unfollowed some people too. Unlike you though, even when I don’t drop by their blog often, I continue to follow them, hoping to find a possible conversation starter and learn more about the person.
I guess I should stop worrying, huh? True that. I guess it’s just hard for me, not knowing the reason. And thanks, Reem! <3
Hi!
I’ve found your post when I was looking for an app to kwno who unfollows me on Blogloving. At first I was really anxious about unfollowers, especially when it was a fellow blogger like in your case. Now, what really annoys me is people following you, I follow back and in 2 days, they unfollow. This is happening a lot on Twitter, Pinterest and Bloglovin. So I want to unfollow those people. If you know an app for Bloglovin/Pinterest, I’d be very grateful. By the way, I’m following you on Bloglovin. If you fancy a read at my blog, this is mine https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/10742047/
Jasmine xx
I feel exactly the same way. I kinda get annoyed about this Follow for Follow think, because what is the point of blogging. If someone likes your blog and posts will follow it and it wouldn’t care if you follow back. I just popped in here as i was looking for an app or something so i can check who unfollows. I just stress myself too much as i think the same stuff as you.Am i rubbish, Is my blog rubbish ans stuff like that.
While I can live with a lost follower, it becomes personal when someone big or someone I know unfollows me. Then it feels like I angered them or I’ve lost a friend! It more depends on the person who unfollowed me.