The two main reasons why I unsubscribed from your content:

• You put out too much content
• You put out irrelevant content

Don’t do either of these (hopefully I haven’t done either here).

How much is too much?

Are you swamping my feed? Are you producing more than I can consume?

This is hard to quantify - your tolerance for ‘stuff’ might be higher than mine.

Generally though, I unsubscribe when the content adds little to no value. If your promotional content outweighs your value content then you are starting to overload me.

What is irrelevant content?

• Family photos
• Pet photos
• Staff photos
• Affiliate promotion that I’m not a target market for

You might get away with irrelevant photos if the description tries to tie it back to value providing content. But if you just post photos to keep the flow of posts coming then I’ll probably unsubscribe.

You can check this by dispassionately reviewing your feed on each platform. In aggregate how many of the posts are relevant to your identified target audience?

If I can filter you, then I will

If you swamp my feed on a platform then you are at risk of being dumped.

Twitter allows me to move your content into a list of your own or with other ‘over producers’ and I might actually read your content less as a result.

On a platform like Instagram, I’ll just delete you.

Case Study

I just (literally minutes prior to writing this post) unsubscribed to the email newsletter of a magazine I like to read. Every single email they sent me was an advert, and not just one advert, an entire email filled with adverts (back issues, future issues, special editions, signed editions). Sometimes they would send me three emails a day - often in the same 10 minutes . No discounts. No sneak peeks. No exclusives. No information. No value. I unsubscribed.

Often we accept that unsubscribes are something to celebrate because it means the person unsubscribing does not want to hear your message. But if it wasn’t your values that turned me away, and instead was the lack of value in the communication then you’ve lost the potential for a likely sale. We need to have an ongoing system where I eventually feel guilty for consuming your free content and my reciprocity muscle kicks in and I give you my money.

Release content only as often as you can add value

I looked at my experience and actually reigned in on releasing content creation because I was concerned that I might swamp the feed of people following me.

This actually paid off because I didn’t stop creating content, I just released it more slowly, which allowed me to fill my buffer - which helped when I became too busy at work, or too busy speaking at conferences.

Bonus Unsubscription Avoidance Checklist

To avoid me unsubscribing from your stuff - make sure you fulfill this checklist on every post:

• did you add value?
• you are welcome to promote your stuff, but did the value outweigh the promotion?
• did you edit to respect my consumption time?
• did you format your content to be consumable on a mobile device?
• did you build trust or does this message feel like a scam?
• is your content in keeping with why I started reading it?
• if this is a promotion, have you provided enough preceding content that can cause a reciprocity response?
• if this is a promotion, have you provided a discount or bonus to reward my fan like devotion to your earlier content?