Why Do You Keep Losing Followers On Twitter?

byYourBizTips

7.5K followers

Updated 6 years ago

On the night of Wednesday 15 to Thursday 16 August, the social network has proceeded to yet another "purge" of fake accounts and other robots that often populate your community of followers. Let's have a look at a hunt for "fake" that intensifies ...

Twitter is chasing fake accounts

Since the beginning of the year, and in particular since the entry into force of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in May, several thousand fake accounts have been deleted in many countries on the social network.

Did you lose dozens of followers on Twitter last night? Do not worry, it's not because of your political opinions, or your point of view on why Tiger Woods' new cap could be the worst horror in the legend of golf!

No, this "purge" is due to the will of the social network, to get rid of thousands, not to say millions of "fake" accounts, which often pollute the sphere and in particular your community, without you knowing it.

This hunt for false accounts has intensified in recent weeks. Indeed, Twitter has taken advantage of school holidays to do the cleaning especially in the night of July 12 to 13, and then from July 30 to July 31 - again removing thousands of accounts.

Barack Obama lost 2.9 million subscribers in July

Some, actually real followers were even temporarily blocked, the time that their holders agree to verify their identity, by communicating their telephone number for validation (of the account) by SMS. The operation was even renewed on the night of Wednesday 15 to Thursday, August 16, cleaning the network again.

It must be said that Twitter also fights against "bots", these fake accounts automated by robots, which send posts on a large scale. So if the average Twitterer (or Tweeter) only lost a few followers on average during these regular purges, global accounts have suffered much more from this cleanup.

According to the New York Times, Katy Perry, the most-watched personality on the social network has lost nearly three million subscribers in the night of July 12-13. It was slightly less for Barack Obama (-2.9M) or Oprah Winfrey (-1.4M), other stars of the network of the little blue bird.

But that's nothing compared to the official account of Twitter, which itself saw flying 7.7 million followers in one night, that's 12% of its total audience.

Fight against the purchases of "false followers"

In the end, the first goal is to fight against the spread of fake news, which invaded the various networks including Facebook and Twitter, during the US and French presidential elections. But the idea is also to proscribe the purchase of fake followers, a practice that has spread rapidly in recent years.

Companies based in India or Pakistan, for a few hundred dollars sometimes, offered to "pay their community". It will be much more difficult now, to buy its notoriety and therefore its credibility on Twitter, what some influencers were risking doing so far.

Finally, there is an economic issue that should not be overlooked, when we know that the network offers to "sponsor" tweets, that is to say, to buy the audience. How to justify to pay to reach a number of people, when 10-15% of them are actually imaginary?

Most importantly, a recent Washington Post article estimated that 70 million accounts were deleted in May and June alone. A bad signal for the markets, knowing that the social network has long been on the hot seat. Yet Twitter had finally managed to earn money in the first quarter of 2018, after 11 years of losses.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post.