Is the Instagram shadowban real?
A shadowban is the idea that the Instagram algorithm is limiting the visibility of your posts, deliberately and consistently because of something you have done. Many people link it to hashtags and say that when they post their image, they are not being found under those hashtags. This would limit the amount of likes and engagement on their posts as people would not find them via discovery when searching.
The concept first started swirling around in 2017 after a series of updates to Instagram's algorithms that may or may not have changed the reach and engagement of accounts for a number of reasons.
I find this conversation particularly interesting because I know people who swear they have been shadowbanned and can describe the exact details of the limitations imposed. It's true that you can get yourself put in the 'naughty corner' and even the best of us have had that happen once or twice by accident. So I've done a little digging to help you understand what it's all about and how you can avoid getting yourself in trouble.
What Instagram says about the existence of the shadowban
It's not true. The explanation is that there is an algorithmic search applied to hashtags. So when I search a particular hashtag, what I see will be different to what you see if you perform the same search. The details of how that particular algorithm works is not known. But in 2021, Instagram made some major changes to the search algorithms and let us know that keywords in the caption are now included. This means that the hashtags you use within the caption space are counted as keywords as well as hashtags - my advice is to stop putting them in the comments.
Shadowban aside, are there any rules that you do need to follow on Instagram?
The short answer is yes, absolutely. Here are some of the things you should know.
Banned hashtags
There are thousands of hashtags that are 'banned' from use because they are consistently used by dodgy and pornographic accounts. The hard part is working out what these hashtags are because they are not always obvious. For example #desk #easter and #pushups have previously been on the list. If you use these hashtags a lot or if you use multiple ones in your posts you might find your content is demoted. There is no definitive list available and it changes regularly because the kinds of accounts that are causing the trouble are slippery and keep moving...I mean #easter for goodness sake!
So do your research please. If you search a hashtag and it says "no hashtags found" it's likely that it's been blocked for review. You can click on it and there might be a few posts greyed out with a message that says that posts are hidden because they don't comply with Instagram's community guidelines.
Using bad hashtags shouldn’t get you in trouble but they will be useless to you. A useless hashtag will not attract the right people to your post so you should use hashtags in a strategic way.
If you would like to understand how hashtags work and how to use hashtags effectively for your small business, I have developed a comprehensive guide that you can download here.
Why did my account get paused?
This is a common complaint. It's not clear when you start out on Instagram what the 'rules' are, unless you are one of those people who actually read the T&Cs. It's surprisingly easy to get your account paused. This will be for a minimum of 24 hours and, depending on why and how often you've done it before, it can last much longer. Your account will get paused if the algorithm notices behaviour it thinks is suspicious or spammy. Below are some of the rules that you should know.
Some of the Instagram rules you may not be aware of
There is still a 7,500 limit on the number of accounts you can follow. If you get to that many, firstly that is crazy and secondly you'll have to unfollow a few before you can follow new ones.
There are limits to the number of accounts you can follow hourly or daily but no one really knows what that is 😆 We do know that it varies according to the size of your account. Be conservative and stick to 10 per hour when you’re just starting out and 100 per day. You can do more but I would not recommend it for a lot more reasons than just getting paused.
Post likes per hour has a defined limit of 100-120. You must not like more than that in an hour or you will get paused. But seriously that is a LOT.
Tags / mentions in a comment must not exceed five. Doing that repeatedly may get you paused.
Copying and pasting the same comment repeatedly is also a no no. Doing that repeatedly may get you paused or your comments simply won't be shown.
You can’t have more than 32 people in a group message.
You can only tag 20 people in a post and 10 people in a Story.
You can only use 30 hashtags in a post and 10 in a Story.
Don't use bots. They are annoying to your potential customers and they are not allowed.
Don't do anything that could be mistaken for spammy behaviour. This includes mass following or unfollowing. If you're struck with the urge to declutter your feed, just go slowly. I have some thoughts on decluttering your feed and why it’s super important - you can read that post here.
Note: Preview App released a list of these numbers in December 2021 and some may contradict me but I’ve not been able to confirm. You can read their list here.
So there it is. Do you believe in the shadowban? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Find out more about how the Instagram algorithm works here. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram or Facebook and feel free to join my private Facebook group in the groups tab on my business page.
✌🏻 Erika
