Instagram Shadowban: What You Need to Know
Have you noticed your Instagram activity dwindling lately? Here’s some good news, you aren’t the only one. Bad news, we don’t foresee Instagram putting a stop to this recent phenomenon anytime soon. The shadowban is a big obstacle many users have been facing. Here are the details.
WHAT IS SHADOWBANNING + HOW IT HAPPENS
Think of a shadowban as a “veil” over your account to keep others from seeing your posts. This veil can be placed on your account for many reasons. For instance, using the same hashtags frequently. Your followers and you will still be able to view and interact with your post. However, you won’t be gaining any new followers or likes from others since your post will not show up under the hashtag when searched. This is one of the most frustrating parts because hashtags play a big role in how people connect, find out new information, grow, and most importantly, build communities. If people are blocked from this, being social on social media becomes a challenge.
In addition to frequent use of certain hashtags, if your content is considered improper or against Instagram’s policies, a shadowban may be in your future. The line is sometimes hard to distinguish between what may fall into the improper category. For instance, using automated apps that follow other people for you, like on their photos, and so on is considered against their policy.
HOW TO AVOID BECOMING SHADOWBANNED
If you are running a business page and have noticed engagement dropping, simply change your page over to a personal page and the chances of being banned decrease.
Switch up your hashtags. One thing our team noticed is changing up and researching new hashtags was a way to lower your chances of being banned. This also helped with new interactions.
Lastly, Instagram did release a statement that essentially says to be more creative with your content in order to gain interactions and not to solely rely on hashtags. Don’t get us wrong, we love Instagram but they do like to throw people for a loop. The biggest thing that we recommend doing is switching up your content and being mindful of your posting habits. Try following some of these tips and see if there is a change in your Instagram activity.
