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Lattes for Lunch

Instagram Coach for Badass Womxn

How to Tell if You’ve Been Shadowbanned on Instagram

September 5, 2020 by Nicole

Suspect that you’ve been Shadowbanned on Instagram? Here’s what you can do if you suspect that your account has been shadowbanned!

First and foremost, for the purposes of this blog post – let’s define what a shadowban is when it comes to your Instagram content!

The term ‘shadowban’ has been so widely used on Instagram that the definition has warped over time.

A shadowban is when you publish content on Instagram using hashtags, but your content is hidden from anyone searching under those specific hashtags.

Here’s what it looks like. You create a post using #wearethecreativeeconomy but a scroll under the most recent posts section of that hashtag does not product your post.

Leaving your content highly invisible.

If you suspect that you have been shadowbanned don’t start clicking around in the hashtags directly from your posts.

Searching your hashtags this way can actually produce a false result.

Meaning, if you click #wearethecreativeeconomy from the caption or comments section of your post, suddenly your post appears in top posts under that hashtag.

But that result is only being delivered to you <gasp>

The best way to confirm that you’ve been shadowbanned is to ask a friend (or better yet, two friends) to type in one of the hashtags used in your content and have them scroll under most recent posts searching for your content.

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And if you have a really awesome friend,  ask them for a screenshot, I think the kids are calling this ‘receipts’.

Ok so maybe the outcome of your friend’s search didn’t produce your content and now you are wondering what in the black hole in the name of Instagram happened to your content.

Chances are that you are facing down a shadowban.

The biggest reasons for Instagram hiding or shadowbanning content come down to ‘spammy’ practices. 

Spammy practices can include bots and automation that go against Instagram’s terms of service. 

Or, a spammy practice can simply be that you used the same set of hashtags on repeat for the last 5 posts you created this week and Instagram went “nope”

Hopefully, your content hasn’t yet fallen victim to an Instagram shadowban but the idea of it terrifies you…

Speaking as someone who has actually experienced a shadowban, its definitely a bit disarming, especially as a social marketer.

If you are wondering what in the fresh hell a social marketer did in order to be on the receiving end of a shadowban, welp, I’ll tell you!

At the time that I launched my account, it was my second business.

I used the account of my first business in order to leverage the following on my new business (this one)

Launching my new business with a fun free Instagram challenge gave my account posts more engagement that I had followers.

Pair those two factors up with the use of the same sets of hashtags for posts on both accounts, multiple days in a row #overwhelmedwithrunningtwobusinesses……

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Instagram caught on to my ways and boom – SHADOWBAN! Right in the middle of my launch. Virtual nightmare, amiright?!

I abused those hashtags and Instagram caught on and marked my account as spammy. I googled my way into a panic attack wondering what I could do have my Instagram Shadownban lifted [spoiler: not much] and here we are 2 years later with a successful Instagram marketing business that hasn’t fallen to the same fate again.

Now let’s get back to your content.

How can your content avoid falling victim to a shadowban on Instagram?

Pretty easy actually

2) Care for your hashtags like they are your Instagram life support

Hashtags are one of the most unique factors of Instagram. 

Strategically using hashtags is what allows our content to be found, connects us to others, and lands us those dreamy ideal clients.

But don’t abuse the system, using the same hashtags over and over again with result in a shadowban. 

One of the ways to avoid this is to get those hashtags out of your planning apps and breaking the habit of dumping them into your posts without looking at whatcha got going on.

2) Don’t Abuse The System

Those apps that ‘bring in new followers’ and ‘do the work’ for you. Don’t believe the hype.

Like those third-party apps that are set up to follow/unfollow accounts on your behalf or watch Instagram stories on your behalf. 

They are also highly suspect in violating Instagram’s terms of service and will do nothing to move the needle in your business.

While it may be super tempting to get on the latest growth hack bandwagon, just plain old don’t do it

3) You Don’t Need to Be In Your Feed as Often as You Think

Feeling burned out from posting in your feed? You might feel uninspired or maybe you even ditched your feed for a month or two because you just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

I’m also guessing you were posting way too often. Like posting every single day too often. Or posting multiple times within the hour too often.

You can successfully market your business on Instagram with anywhere from 1-4 post per week. Yes, really.

Posting multiple times a day, or even multiple times within the hour is a fast track for getting your content on the receiving end of a big old shadowban!

Ok, so maybe you did everything right, but for some unknown reason, you still found yourself on the receiving end of a shadowban, what’s next?

Have you been Instagram Shadowbanned?

Once you have undoubtedly determined that you’ve been shadowbanned, you can report it to Instagram.

But there is very little you can do to have it lifted immediately. Andddd…. Instagram themselves vehemently denies that such a thing even exists in their app <face palm>

Here’s how to report being shadowbanned to Instagram

Click into settings > help > report a problem > something isn’t working > and type in the description of your problem like ‘my content is not being shown under hashtags’

If you find yourself on the receiving end of a shadowban I also encourage you to audit your brand’s personal hashtag library.

It takes a total of around 2 weeks to have a shadowban lifted. 

In the meantime, you can reduce your total number of posts in your feed throughout the week.

Go through those hashtags yourself and audit each and every single one before they touch your content again.

Delete any apps that you might be using that require your Instagram login info.

Stay more active in Stories, in IGTV, or in Reels.

And take a deep breath because your shadowbanned content on Instagram will be visible again in no time!

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Need to audit your Instagram account? Grab a copy of >>>The Instagram audit <<< while you’re here!!!

Filed Under: Instagram Tagged With: Instagram, Instagram Marketing, Shadowban, Shadowbanned on Instagram

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📲I help badass entrepreneurs up-level their biz on Instagram with any size audience
#️⃣Hashtag Strategist
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Nicole | Instagram Coach
▷Struggling to create high-value content for you ▷Struggling to create high-value content for your audience without giving away the farm? 🐮🚜
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▷Remember, The 'what' and the 'why' of your content is the info you give away for free 📲
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▷The 'how' of your content is what your clients pay you for 💸
▷Hashtags Myths - Let's do this!! ▷Hashtags a ▷Hashtags Myths - Let's do this!!

▷Hashtags are such a polarizing topic on Instagram!

▷I'm breaking out the top Hashtags Myths I hear in the DMs and when I work with my clients 😯

▷Typing out Hashtags will improve my reach...

▷There is zero difference in how Instagram reads your hashtags, as in whether you copy & pasted them 

▷Waiting to post hashtags will do [this magical thing]

▷Your feed posts are sorted in chronological order by the time that you hit the post, not by the time that you added in hashtags.

▷If you wait to post your hashtags you are just pushing your content to those tags at a later time, which is hurting your reach

▷High volume hashtags will amplify my insights

▷This one.... <le sigh> if you are using high volume hashtags purely to boost your numbers - you  are providing your account with false metrics

▷Hashtags work better in the caption/comments

▷They work in both! It all depends on how you want to format your user experience and catch your audience before you lose them to the scroll hole

▷I've been shadowbanned because my insights are low

▷I could write a novel on the term 'shadowban' - what it meant when we first saw it in 2016 and commonly and misused the phrase has come to be.

▷Low insights do not equal a ban. If you feel that your content is not populating under the hashtags you used 𝗗𝗢 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗞 the hashtags from within your content to check, you will get a false reading.

▷Check from your personal account by typing your chosen hashtags into the magnifier and scrolling to find your content, or have a friend do the same from their account!
▷Can any of my other parental unit friends relat ▷Can any of my other parental unit friends relate to this? 😂
▷Just sip & scroll, sip & scroll 😂 ▷Just sip & scroll, sip & scroll 😂
▷𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞!
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▷I love writing Instagram Captions, but not everyone has the same zest for maxing out their character length as me 🤷🏻‍♀️
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▷Here's a quick guide that you to refer to when putting together your IG Captions 👇🏾
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▷𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡
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▷Your caption length only needs to be as long or as short as it takes for you to get your message across
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▷If writing a mini-novel is not your thing, that's totally fine!
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▷If writing a mini-novel 𝙞𝙨 your thing [ahem🙋🏻‍♀️] that's totally fine!
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▷𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠
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▷When I read your captions, I need to feel like I am sitting across from you having a conversation with a friend
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▷I also need to trust that what you're saying is a reflection of your brand's values & the experience you provide through your business!
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▷Not sure about your messaging? Here's a tip: If you wouldn't say it out loud, don't write it in your captions!
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▷𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝
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▷What unique high-value, actionable tips, tricks or info are you providing me with, that I cannot get anywhere else? 😲
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▷If you want to position yourself as an industry leader, make it happen in your captions!
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▷𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝
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▷You have such a short amount of time to catch the eye of your reader before you lose them to the scroll hole!
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▷Big chunks of text that are not broken out will make eyes glaze over 😴
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▷Make it an easy read 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 with your content!
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▷𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐔𝐩
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▷Edit yourself!
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▷I love writing my captions in Planoly on Chrome from desktop, with the Grammarly extension so that I can easily catch any errors!
▷A big part of me really wanted Instagram's anno ▷A big part of me really wanted Instagram's announcement this week to be that they were rolling out the Swipe-UP feature across accounts of all sizes 🤷🏻‍♀️
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▷I can't tell you how much I dislike that IG incentivizes larger sized accounts by providing them with an additional tool that is not readily available to others
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▷But please hear me when I say 👇🏾
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▷𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝟭𝟬𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀
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▷𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟭𝟬𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀
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▷If you cannot sell to a smaller sized audience
[where, honestly, you have much more room to build genuine connections] or generate referrals, create leads, build relationships, or, form collaborations then....
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▷Amassing a large following is not going to solve your sales problems!
▷I'm too damn stubborn to quit 👏🏾 ▷I'm too damn stubborn to quit 👏🏾
▷⚡️ How to 𝐀𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐲 ▷⚡️ How to 𝐀𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 with any size audience 👇🏾
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▷Create content with an audience-first mindset
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▷Create high-value content that compels your audience to save & share it {without even being prompted to do so 😯 }
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▷CONSISTENTLY maintain the level of high-value content that you create on your account {this does not = posting every single day 😏 }
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▷𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 through the lens of your mission and your brand values; all while using your personal voice! 🗣
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▷I'm hosting a live workshop this coming Monday, February 22nd at 7 pm EST called 𝗔𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀, 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝘀!
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▷Can't make the live workshop?
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▷Your ticket comes with a copy of the recording and the worksheets, which will land straight in your inbox the day after the workshop 💌
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▷Grab your ticket for just $37 via the link in my bio!
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▷Or send me a DM!📲
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▷Tickets will be up for grabs until Monday at 12pm EST 🎟️
▷Instagram has exploded in growth over the last ▷Instagram has exploded in growth over the last year with new ways to distribute content 🎉
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▷Some of us are sipping coffee and diving right in
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▷Others are sipping coffee and feeling overwhelmed at the thought of trying to pile on 𝘆𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 way to create content for our business 🙄
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▷You don't have to be present on every content outlet of Instagram if it doesn't serve your business
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▷𝗕𝘂𝘁, 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻, 𝗜 𝗽𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 & 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗲!
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▷𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 - 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 👇🏾
Building reach & impressions
Connecting with new followers
Solving a problem
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▷𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 - 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 👇🏾
Behind the scenes
Audience feedback {polls, questions}
Building your 'know, like, trust' factor
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▷𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 {𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗜𝗚𝗧𝗩} 👇🏾
Launches
Q&A
Building your 'know, like, trust' factor
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▷𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗥𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 - 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 👇🏾
Entertainment
Education
Building Visibility {the algorithm still loves Reels!}
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▷𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 - 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 👇🏾
Resources
Education
Affiliate Marketing
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▷Want an in-depth PDF version of this post with quick tips to maximize growth on each of these outlets?
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▷Send me a DM and it's yours!
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