Don’t let the Instagram shadowban take you down.
Instagram shadowban freezes the growth of an Instagram account and its reach, and that’s why everybody hates it. In this article, we are going to get to know every about Instagram shadow ban and how to get out from Under the Instagram Shadowban.
What is an Instagram shadowban?
Instagram shadowban is a kind of ban which makes an Instagram account’s activities and posts to fade from the hashtag list of their chosen hashtags like there is a shadow on them avoiding the posts from being seen by others.
The most common sign of a shadowban is when you experience a huge drop in your engagement and reach, especially from hashtags, that’s when you will come to know that you are most probably shadowbanned. There is nothing worse than a shadowban for a person trying to promote an Instagram account since it totally stops the engagement which used to come to the account so your account would see zero growth! That’s a disaster for an account, so you have to be aware of the reasons why you get shadowbanned to be able to avoid them.
This is a problem which is reported thousands of times daily on Instagram itself and communities like Reddit and Quora. It is so typical that a topic on Quora is made on “Shadowban”! The majority of Instagram problems is related to account’s posts not showing up in hashtags and the huge drop in their engagement, which both of them are the effects of shadowban.
What causes an Instagram shadowban?
Instagram shadowban does not happen out of the blue and from nowhere. You must have done something wrong, which led to your account getting shadowbanned. There are some reasons why an account gets shadowbanned, and some of them are as listed below:
- Using banned hashtags
If you were unaware of this fact, let me tell you that Instagram actually has some hashtags which are broken, abused, or banned. You surely might be thinking what is a banned hashtag? Banned hashtags are the hashtags that Instagram has detected to violate its terms. Some of these hashtags have been misused and contain a lot of inappropriate content which was against Instagram’s Terms, so they got detected by Instagram and their use of either limited or banned completely.
Here a question pops up on your mind asking about how can we know which hashtags are banned on Instagram? The answer is very simple and it has only a few easy steps to find out banned Instagram hashtags. You just need to take a look at one of our blogs on How to check if a hashtag is banned on Instagram?
- You exceeded your daily limits on Instagram
Instagram like all other social media has its own hourly/daily limits which if exceeded, can have consequences like a temporary ban which if repeated several times can be changed into a permanent ban and in result, you’ll lose your account. If you keep liking, commenting, following/unfollowing at a fast speed and over the set limit, you are putting your account at the risk of getting shadowbanned. You need to keep track of your daily activities on Instagram, which I confess, is not easy and needs accuracy and time.
If you cannot afford that time, all you have to do is to give the handle of your account to a reliable automation tool to do all your activities on your behalf.
Instazood is one of those safe Instagram bots which is totally based on Instagram limits, and it does not exceed the hourly/daily limits so your account would grow organically and safe.
- Using the same set and number of hashtags for a long time
It is one of the main reasons why people get shadowbanned on Instagram. I bet so many of you use the same hashtags with same quantity under your posts on Instagram without knowing how bad it is. You need to vary your set of hashtags at least once a week and try not using all 30 hashtags all the time and differ the numbers that you use hashtags each time.
- Getting reported by others
One of the quickest way to show up on Instagram’s shadowban radar is by continuously getting reported by other Instagram users. People might report you due to different reasons like abusing their beliefs or interests of violating Instagram’s terms, impersonation, spamming, or even due to personal enmity.
Try to avoid getting reported by posting good and original content and do not violate any of Instagram’s term of services and try not to abuse anyone or a group of people either directly or indirectly.
How to find out if you’ve been shadowbanned?
You have noticed that you do not get as much as more engaged Instagram followers as you used to and when you check your Instagram business Insights, you see your hashtag reach is very low and almost zero! This makes you think you have been shadowbanned but not every drop in engagement means shadowban. There are ways to check if you have been shadowbanned or not.
- Get help from another person
The first thing you have to do is check if your post appears in the hashtags you have chosen for your post or not. To do this, try posting a picture 2–3 hashtags which are not that popular. Next, ask a friend to unfollow you and search the hashtag from their search bar. Next, ask a friend to unfollow your account and then search for one of the hashtags you used in your recent post. If your post appears under the hashtag (either in the Top Posts or Recent Posts), then you’re safe. But if you post did not show up, you are unfortunately shadowbanned. - Use a shadowban analyzer
There are a few tools over the web which claim to tell you whether your posts are shadow banned or not. These tools are not guaranteed and might not be accurate. Their working process is that they search up the hashtags you have chosen to see if your posts exist on their list or not.
How long does an Instagram shadowban last?
The actual length of shadowban is still a mystery that nobody knows about. It sometimes lasts a week, for others 3 weeks and others over 1 month. But the most common duration is reported 14 days, and after these 14 days, the effects of shadowban would start fading away little by little not all at once. During this time, your account is watched out by Instagram, and even the smallest mistake would cause your account to get shadowbanned once again.
Ways to Get out from Under the Instagram Shadowban
Now the time has come to know about the ways to get unshadowbanned and feel free once again on Instagram.
- Stop using banned hashtags
Write a list of all the hashtags you have used under your posts recently and check them one by one to see which of them is banned and omit them from your list of hashtags forever and ever. Instagram sometimes makes detecting these hashtags easier by leaving a short message at the bottom of a banned hashtag page explaining that posts have been hidden for not meeting the community guidelines. - Create an Instagram Pod or Engagement group
Most of you might never have heard of Instagram pods. Instagram pods or engagement groups are groups consisting of people which somehow have similar niche and interest, which help each other to get organic engagement by visiting each other’s accounts, liking posts, and leaving comments.
- Change your hashtag set and number all the time
Instagram lets you use up to 30 hashtags per post, and I will not say it is a bad thing to do but do not always apply this strategy. This is a wrong idea to think the more hashtags you use, the more your reach would become. You have to vary the number of hashtags once a while not to look spammy. And also remember not to use the same set of hashtags repeatedly. Also using irrelevant hashtags only because they are popular is very risky. - Switch to a personal account
This might seem like a strange solution, but some Instagrammers have said that they could unshadowban their accounts by switching back to a personal account from a business account. The reason why this might work is because we all know Instagram is owned by Facebook and Facebook is known to lower engagement just to make its users buy ads to get more reach.
- Take a break from Instagram activities
It is reported that taking 2–3 days off Instagram not doing any activity and stay logged out from the app has helped some of the users to lift up their shadowban but it is not guaranteed since it depends on the reason you have been shadowbanned and how severe the action which caused your account to be shadowbanned, was. - Report the issue Instagram
This might seem funny to most of you since we all know Instagram absolutely does nothing support its users and it is very hard to get in touch with Instagram, but a lot of Instagrammers just get lucky when contacting Instagram so just give it a try. Just go to your profile, the “cog” icon, and scroll down until you find the “Report a Problem” option. Next, select “Something Isn’t Working” from the pop-up, and write a message describing your problem.
Tip: Do not directly say that you have been shadowbanned and say that your posts aren’t showing on the selected hashtags.
- Use service that keeps your account safe
One of the biggest reasons for the shadowban issue is by crossing Instagram’s limits, as mentioned above. You can ditch these limitations by automating your Instagram activities with a service like Instazood, which knows Instagram limits the best. You can try scheduling your posts, which would have a great impact on your account in order to avoid shadowban. You can just devote some minutes of one day to schedule multiple posts for future. You’ll edit their captions with different hashtags and set them to be published in your set time and date in the future. This way, you will not worry about the misusing of your hashtags either, and you’ll have a wonderful posting strategy.
Conclusion
Falling into the shadowban trap is actually the worst experience an Instagram user would have, and knowing the actions which would lead to this nightmare can help you a lot. Just apply the tips above and you’ll never get flagged again.
