Given some time and effort Google+ becomes a thriving community of likeminded individuals who want to engage and discuss topics of interest. As the image above shows your posts are like a party and if you show respect to the “plussers” they will respond in kind.
However, because of the huge rewards that G+ affords it’s users (and businesses) by way of improvements to your organic search rankings, there are users on the platform that are only there for the sake of it or abuse it for their own personal gain.
These people will be unfollowed according to the plussers themselves! Let’s look at some of the top reasons why you’re likely to get unfollowed:
- Directly sharing posts. A personal bug bear of mine. Unless it is explicitly relevant to me then don’t share it. It’s vain to assume that a large group of people want to see your posts and people will often unfollow you if you do it.
- Irrelevant content. Users will often circle you based on a particular interest that you fit. For Intergage this is digital marketing so if we start sharing content about swamping stamps your followers would soon get annoyed. Nudity is also a no-go for a lot of people.
- Not engaging. We all post content in the hope that our followers will find it interesting and therefore plus/comment/share, which they will. They won’t if you don’t comment back, especially if they ask you a question. For more engagement try to engage with your followers’ posts too, they’ll respond in kind.
- Being rude. Tone is very difficult to express online and whilst you might think you’re being playful/sarcastic/etc your follower may assume you’re being straight faced. Ensure you are polite at all times and if in doubt add a winking face
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(Martin Harris also suggested “elitist attitudes” as a grievance and I have to agree).
- Relentless self-promotion. Your followers probably won’t mind the occasional “check out my blog about x” but if your entire profile/page is saturated with your own work then people will soon unfollow.
- Irregular content. Not just spamming your followers newsfeeds with dozens of posts a day but also only posting once a week or less. A major grievance though is posting too regularly.
- Whining/Moaning. Are you a sulky Susan? A moaning Marcus? Well leave your misery on Facebook. People want to engage, not cry (although a well-aimed rant always goes down well in my opinion).
If you steer clear of these Google+ gripes you should maintain a healthy follower count. Whilst this post is about Google+ you’ll find many of these tips will be true for the majority of social media platforms. For any help with your social media marketing get in touch with one of the team on 0845 456 1022.
(Image Source: https://plus.google.com/?partnerid=gplp0)
