Summer Is Heating… Is Your Marketing Doing the Same?

Light the fireworks and look to the sky, it’s time to light up your marketing with a colorful technique! During this month of independence we want to help you and your business reach its full potential. Stay tuned as we release what’s been going on behind the scenes of the social media world. Learn the newest catch-phrases and techniques that are being generated across the web.

Have you heard of the term "shadowbanned?

Sadly in the world of social media marketing, “shadowbanned” is a term that you need to get familiar with. Technically it’s not an official term of IG, but it’s used by many when their accounts have been deprioritized from news feeds or worse have had their content/account become undiscoverable. If you’ve had your instagram account for years, you may have noticed your instagram followers and interactions have been on the decline. Why is that, you may ask?

Some of these may seem like a no-brainer but make sure to do your fact checking before you click the post button. Follow these steps below to decrease your chances of being shadowbanned:

1. Violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines or posting inappropriate content. This includes posts with violence, sexually suggestive content, and misinformation.

2. Fake engagements, such as paying for likes or comments, using bots to increase followers, and participating in engagement pods.

3. Spammy activity, for instance, using over 30 hashtags in a single post. Some users have also claimed that they’ve been shadowbanned for commenting on too many posts or following too many people within an hour.

4. Using banned hashtags. While Instagram hasn’t released an official list, here’s a blog post with certain hashtags to avoid.

5. Using a hashtag that receives a sudden surge of activity. This occurred in June 2020 when users shared information about #BlackLivesMatter. Instagram’s Comms team claimed it was an error — their technology detected the flurry of activity as spam.

6. Avoid big surges in Instagram activity. Instagram imposes limits on user activity to crack down on bots. If you suddenly follow 50 accounts or like too many posts, it may be interpreted as “bot activity”.

7. Avoid spam-like activity, such as copy and pasting the same comment or DM, and following and unfollowing accounts.