What is Instagram Shadow Ban?
Jennifer Frances — June 12, 2018 — June 12, 2018
Instagram Shadow-ban is a ban that renders your hashtags undiscoverable by the vibrant users. Only your followers will be able to see your feed and not the entire Instagram community. The ban is superficial and happens only when a rule has been broken. You have to fix those red flags to get your content back in good standing.
It’s easy to know if you’ve been shadow-banned. Search your posts under the tags used and see if they appear. If they don’t show up, just know you are a victim of a shadow-ban. The second method of testing for this ban is to check with your followers if they can see your posts.
Reasons that could lead to Instagram shadow-ban
No one has a sure answer as to what leads to a shadow-ban. Nevertheless, we can all agree that infringing upon Instagrams’ user policy could get you that position. In a bid to keep their community safe and protect it from spammers and bots users, Instagram has been forced to tighten the rules a little further.
Many bloggers think that overusing a hashtag or using a banned one could trigger the attention of spam filters and algorithms. The same can happen if you post, like or comment too much. You need to engage with your followers humanly. Like and leave comments only on what pleases or attracts your attention while skipping other posts. It’s sane not to be pleased by everything.
If your actions go beyond limits like over commenting, hashtag overuse, liking mindlessly, too many follows, etc, you could come off as someone using the assistance of a software (or an app). You will be shadow-banned, and your engagement will crash.
Fixing the problem
As said earlier on, this ban is transient and can be lifted. You need to keep posting quality content to avoid being shadow-banned; don’t buy followers or rely on bot programs for better engagement as well. Other pointers to stick by include:
- Look for any posts, comments or media that could have raised the red flag and remove or fix it.
- De-link third-party programs that could have led to the ban. This can include bots or an automation software that infringes on Instagram’s Terms of service
- Don’t use repetitive, banned or too many hashtags
- Remove hashtags from posts that were shadow-banned
- Take a break from Instagram for two to three days. During this hiatus, do not post, like, comment or reply to anything. Just go and watch a movie, meditate or work on other projects. This will give IG algorithms the impression that you are human, after all.
Triberr’s Instagram Shadowban Test
Triberr can also help to check for the presence of a shadow-ban. The program lets you know if your content and captions are showing up well for other IG users. It does this by inspecting your last ten posts and identify culprits. The same tool can show you the performance of each post in terms of comments and likes.
So the next time you get a hunch that your posts’ engagement is crippled, step over to Triberr for an inspection. Note that reach and engagement can shift in regards to a change in Instagram’s business strategy. So don’t be so quick to imagine that you’ve been shadow-banned when your engagement tumbles.
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