How to Avoid an Instagram Shadowban

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How to Avoid an Instagram Shadowban

Along with every social media channel out there, there are several Instagram accounts that demonstrate spammy and inappropriate behavior. The platform is always looking for ways to reduce these types of accounts to keep the social media experience safe and enjoyable. One of the ways they do this is through a shadowban. Social Spice Media gives you the details about what a shadowban means for your Instagram business account and how to avoid one.
What is a shadowban?
A shadowban hides your Instagram posts from any user who is not following you. This can make it difficult to achieve any sort of growth on the platform when your posts are not visible to your targets or easily searchable. Your posts will also not show up for users that search for hashtags you have used on your account. Again, only your followers will see them, preventing the type of organic growth you need on Instagram. A shadowban can occur for various reasons: using an excessive and repetitive number of hashtags or demonstrating spammy, inappropriate, and abusive behavior. The bans are not permanent but can last for weeks. Instagram has also avoided using “shadowban” in their language when releasing statements regarding platform issues. They refer to them as system improvements and take the vague route to appease users by letting them know: they’re working on it.
Why are bots bad?
Bots come in many different shapes and sizes. The most common ones are a product of companies that sell automated Instagram services. The automation occurs through a bot liking, following, and interacting with other similar pages or ones you target. It can be fairly easy to spot accounts that use bots or automated services to grow their Instagram accounts because the account’s followers are not genuine. Bots and automated services offer specific targeting and interaction. Unfortunately, the bots are only so advanced that their targeting is not precise and their interaction with other accounts is not always relevant. Sometimes, companies have to learn the hard way, but you shouldn’t have to. Organic reach will work much more effectively than implementing a bot on your Instagram account. You can easily spend 15 minutes a day scrolling through your Instagram feed to like relevant posts, interact with like-minded companies, and follow accounts that you want to interact with. You do not have to rely solely on ad dollars to get your posts in front of the right people. It is listed in Instagram’s basic terms as the following, “You must not create accounts with the Service through unauthorized means, including but not limited to, by using an automated device, script, bot, spider, crawler or scraper.” Not only are bots bad at demonstrating genuine interaction, but they also violate Instagram’s terms of use.
How do you avoid a shadowban?
There are several ways your business can avoid a shadowban: • Post original, appropriate content and choose your hashtags wisely! Instagram maxes you out at 30 hashtags, but that doesn’t mean you need to fill the space with all 30. • Don’t overuse hashtags or be repetitive. Spam accounts are notorious for filling their comment sections with the same 30 hashtags in the hopes of appearing in front of more users. • Say “no” to bots! Organic interaction is one of the many purposes of social media platforms. When you automate interaction, you take away the personal aspect of showing others that your business cares about them. • Read the Terms of Service if you are truly unsure of your Instagram behavior. How can your business stand out on Instagram? Get in touch with Social Spice Media to learn more about creating and nurturing relationships on social media to give your brand the best experience on Instagram.