Has your Instagram reach and engagement significantly and suddently declined recently? Are you worried that you?ve been shadowbanned?
Before we begin, take a deep breath and relax. In most cases, a decline in engagement and growth is usually due to a recent change in the Instagram algorithm, not shadowbanning but given Instagram?s recent implementation of automated content take-down and shadowbans, it?s something that more accounts are experiencing every day (it happened to me a few months back despite not breaking any of Instagram?s Community Guidelines. You can read the story of how Instagram upheld the censoring of a black body on my account here).
If you?re worried that you?re shadowbanned, but don?t know how to check if you are, the first thing to do is test it yourself and avoid the hundreds of ?shadowban testers? out there. More of then than not, they are trying to sell you quick ?fixes? and fake results to scare you into buying something.
Here?s how you do it:
What Is Shadowbanning?
First off, it?s important to know what shadowbanning actually means.
Your account is shadowbanned when your content is surfaced to a lesser degree or not surfaced at all in Instagram?s surfacing channels (The Home Page, Explorer Page, and Hashtag Feeds of other users).
This greatly reduces your reach because no one outside of your current followers will discover your account, follow you or engage with your content.
3 Simple Steps to Check If You?re Shadowbanned
Here are three simple steps to check if you?ve been Shadowbanned:
- Find someone with an Instagram account that doesn?t follow you.
- Post on your Instagram account using the hashtags you regularly use.
- Ask the person who doesn?t follow you to quickly check the feeds of the hashtags that you tagged on your post.
If your post doesn?t appear the first time, don?t panic, check again 3?5 minutes later. Connectivity isn?t always reliable and that can affect the timing in which a post shows up on a hashtag feed.
(***Important note: Posts are shown on a hashtag feed in chronological order. This means that the larger the number of posts in the feed of a hashtag, the faster the person who doesn?t follow you will have to check that feed. For example, in a popular hashtag like #fashion (with over 600 million posts), your post can be pushed down in a feed far enough to be ?undiscoverable? within less than a few seconds. If you?re using one of these big hashtags, I?d advise you to change your strategy and use more relevant and niche Instagram hashtags anyway.)
If your post shows up on the hashtag feeds of the person who doesn?t follow you, you are not shadowbanned.
If your posts don?t show up on the hashtag feeds of the person who doesn?t follow you (even after checking twice), you are shadowbanned.
Another way to check is to view your Instagram Insights every day and look out for a sudden and sustained drop in the number of followers that you get.
This is how I identified my shadowban and the drop in followers didn?t stop until I was able to get in touch with Instagram?s Customer Support team and have a post that was taken down re-instated.
Note, this technique to check is usually more effective if you?ve had sustain growth for a long time and the drop in followers is SUDDEN and sustained. If that?s the case, it?s usually due to being reported and reaching Instagram?s reporting threshold.
If You Are Shadowbanned, These Are the Likely Reasons Behind the Ban.
But before we begin, let?s tackle some myths: Banned hashtags aren?t a thing. Really, they aren?t. Check these on Instagram for yourself. None of them are ?banned?. Also, shadowban testers (like this one or this one) aren?t accurate. They exist because people are scared of being shadowbanned and they can leverage that to sell you stuff. If you?re worried about being shadowbanned or that one day Instagram will decide to actually enforce banned hashtags, you can easily check it yourself. It?ll save you from unnecessarily spending money on services you don?t need.
Now that we have that clear, here are the likely reasons behind your shadowbanning:
Btw, have you every asked yourself if your Instagram is actually even worth growing? If not, you should. It might help save you a whole bunch of time and energy. It?s not worth it for everyone?
You or one of the posts you made was reported as ?Innapropriate? content.
Sadly, Instagram automated the process of taking down posts and shadowbanning accounts that have been reported as ?Innapropriate? enough times to reach their reporting threshold, regardless of whether or not they break their Community Guidelines. This is how my account was shadowbanned.
- How to fix it: You can?t fix this type of shadowban unless you get in touch with Instagram?s Customer Support team, which is very difficult. Here?s a guide on how I was able to contact them. To have the highest likelihood of having your account un-shadowbaned, you should take as many screenshots as possible that prove that your account was unjustly reported.
You are using an Instagram automation service (otherwise known as an Instagram bot) that isn?t safe and/or using automation settings that caused your account to be flagged.
Most people think that using an automation service (bot) means getting shadowbanned. That?s not necessarily true. I (and thousands of other accounts) have used a well-automated Instagram automation service through a safe provider to grow my reach for years and I?ve never been shadowbanned. You get shadowbanned if your automation service provider isn?t well-run (using servers and settings that put your account at risk) and/or if your settings surpass Instagram?s interaction thresholds per hour (for example, Instagram allows an account to do X amount of ?likes? per hour, but the exact numbers are always kept secret).
- How to fix it: If you?re worried that your automation provider is the problem, stop using it. If you still want to use one but want to make sure that it?s safe, choose a service provider that sets you up with your own private VPN upon signup and is run by a team invested in keeping your account safe. To make sure that your automation settings don?t raise any flags, also make sure to use an automation service that has automated activity settings. They are managed by the team who creates the product and they are put in place to make sure that their users aren?t flagged (which puts the service at risk).
Your account is getting reported by your audience.
Here?s how your audience can report your posts. People can report you if they consider your posts are harmful or just because they want you to get flagged. If a post gets enough reports, Instagram will take it down and you run the risk of being flagged as a harmful or spammy account.
Instagram is committed to keeping their community safe, so highly-reported content is the first line of defense when it comes to flagging an account for behavior that might harm someone. If your account is flagged for harmful behavior, Instagram will be highly incentivized to not surface your content.
- How to fix it: Each account and audience is different when it comes to what they report, but if you consider that a particular type of content that you?re posting might cause your audience to report you, stop posting that content. No piece of content is worth the risk of being flagged.
After making these changes, check again if you?re shadowbanned: If you?re still Shadowbanned after a week, contact Facebook?s customer service and tell them that your posts aren?t showing up on hashtags (include screenshots with proof). They?re very helpful if you?re not currently violating their Terms of Service.
If You Are Not Shadowbanned, These Are the Likely Reasons Behind Your Declining Engagement and Reach:
The Instagram algorithm changed.
Btw, here?s an article about the best Instagram content scheduling and post automation tools. Using them will help your posting process a lot more efficient ??
Instagram is an advertising company and they make money from keeping you on the app as long as possible to sell your attention to advertisers. The algorithm exists to show you the posts that they consider you are most likely to engage with first, and it?s constantly being tweaked. If Instagram considers that your posts aren?t likely to engage your followers in comparison to all of the other posts available (view the graphic above to see how this works), the algorithm will show your posts to a smaller percentage of your audience. This will result in a lower reach because fewer people are seeing your posts, which sometimes causes some people to worry about being shadowbanned when they aren?t.
Your content has become stale.
How many times have you followed an account that you love only to find that six months down the line you?re kinda bored of their content and just stop paying attention and liking their posts? If you?ve felt this way, so do most other Instagram users. It?s natural for accounts that have been around for a while to see declining engagement rates, just because people are used to them on their feed and/or because they don?t constantly keep their content exciting and engaging. This decline in engagement means that Instagram will downgrade your content on the home feed of your followers, and that lowers your reach. This leads some of us to think that we might be shadowbanned when we?re not.
- How to fix it: The best way to keep your content from getting stale is to constantly test new types of photos/videos/captions that your audience might like and then measure the engagement of those new posts. If they receive above-average engagement, your audience is telling you they connect with that content through their objective behavior (more likes & comments = stronger connection). You should improve that type of content and continue to post it. If they receive low engagement, stop posting that type of content. Continue this process and over time you?ll optimize your content for posts and videos that your audience connects with the most. It?s important to measure your engagement to know what your audience likes and not rely on what you think they like. I?ve heard countless people tell me ?I take great photos, but no one likes them?. If no one likes it, then it?s likely not a great photo for your Instagram, regardless of how you feel about it. Here?s an in-depth article about a simple system to increase your engagement rate that will help you.
People are using Instagram differently.
Instagram has been around for many years now and they have saturated the US market. This means that users (your followers) are beginning to change the way they use the app. Although Instagram provides no data about this, I know from a first-hand source that, like any other business, Instagram also suffers from seasonal changes in the way their customers (users) use the product. People tend to engage with home feeds less and stories more, people tend to follow fewer people, some people use the app less. All of these changes can affect your reach and engagement, not because of the algorithm or a shadowban.
- How to fix it: In regards to this one, be kind to yourself and stop worrying about it. If you?re already in the process of testing and optimizing for your posts? engagement, there?s literally nothing you can do about how Instagram?s users change the way they use the app, so it?s best not to worry about it too much. It?s changing now and it?ll continue to change for as long as the app exists.
There it is. Now you know what Shadowbanning means, how to check for it, what the likely causes of them are, and how to fix them ? now it?s up to you to make the necessary changes, stop worrying about it, and enjoy your life 🙂
If you want to dive deeper into sustainable strategies to grow your Instagram, read this article on the best Instagram bots, the state of Instagram bots in 2020, everything you need to know about TikTok Bots, how to automate an Instagram bot that isn?t spammy, and how to create effective Instagram sponsored posts.
Hope it helps!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my article! If you enjoyed reading it, you can support me by giving this article a bunch of claps, reading my other Instagram-related articles, and following my Instagram to get updates whenever I publish a new piece ?
