There is a great buzz about Shadowban and people are looking for the most proper information about what is it and how it is affecting the social media presence. Today we have come up with the latest information about Instagram shadowban as well as twitter shadowban, what it is, how to get it, avoid it, and the reasons why are people getting it.
So, to know more about this, all you need is to read this article for the better understanding of the whole process.
What is Shadowban?
The term Shadowban refers to ghost banning, and sometimes as stealth banning. This banning type is affecting the online accounts that are found to be violating the rules and terms of service and conditions of a specific social media platform which regulates online community’s ethics.
You might have heard about Instagram shadowbanning and shadowbanned twitter accounts. These are the most known bans, which are affecting the users and are very frustrating because it takes you some time to realize what had happened. What to do when you get shadowbanned?
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Instagram Shadowban
Before going deep into the Instagram Shadowban, it is necessary to keep in mind that Instagram has been implementing different algorithms since 2016 and as a result of this, there are accounts which have got affected and now are experiencing decreased engagement on their channels, decreased post visibility and likes.
This still does not mean that your account has been shadowbanned, it might be that the content on your account is not engaging enough. Due to all the updates Instagram releases, it has become very difficult to have engagement like it was 2 years ago.
In 2018 Instagram shadowban happens when an account has violated Instagram TOS or does not fulfil the requirements of rules and terms and services of the platform. And because botting and other violations, Instagram started filtering out those accounts more strictly and are looking even into real peoples accounts which are not satisfying their terms of service
When your account is Shadowbanned, it becomes practically invisible and blocks your ability to engage new people. In more simple words, the account will no longer be able to share your images by the use of hashtags which people who are not already following you. Research by hashtags is still a very powerful and popular way of engagement on Instagram, and by blocking all the tags on your photos is equal to yelling under water.
Your photos are still can be seen by your current followers but will they not appear in the news feeds of other people when they use your specific hashtags. This is bad news for new accounts because nowadays building a following is much harder than ever before in the history of Instagram.
How to check if your Instagram is Shadowbanned?
There is a website which allows you to check if your Instagram account was shadowbanned, of if some posts or hashtags which you have posted are shadowbanned by the community. To check:
- Go to Tribberr
- Fill in your username
- The tool will analyze last 10 posts and checks if you have any hashtags which are banned
- Remove the hashtags which are affecting the post from being visible on that specific hashtag
Twitter Shadowban
A very similar case with Twitter; because they have rolled out stealth banning by merely cracking up their algorithms. So if your account is suffering from Twitter Shadowban, means that your tweets will be harder to find and will not appear on everyone’s feed who is following you. Therefore, as we have mentioned above, the reason for both platforms is a same-the violation of terms and services.
If you think that you can get more followers, or tweet replies by bots or some other manipulation, then you are wrong. The reason is now the social media platforms are securing their platforms for the purest and fair search results and user experience, and using bots, buying links, buying shares and reposts is not going to benefit you account in the long run.
How to know if my account is being Shadowbanned?
The simplest way to check whether or not shadowban has targeted your account is simply asking few people who do not follow you to check your specific photo with any hashtag or use the website I have mentioned above. We aware that sometimes the number of hashtags can also be an indication of a shadowban of your account, as abusing those to get more likes is just not going to work.
But in another case, if there any hashtags banned on your account, it must be a problem with your engagement strategy, which is most often the issue. The positive side of it is that you can work on it!
What are the reasons for Shadowbanning?
Until now Instagram and Twitter have not clearly defined what the main reasons behind shadowbans are, but according to professional internet marketers, there are more of your actions which are responsible. For example spamming people, commenting the same comment always, getting reported for something insignificant already puts you on the list of accounts to be aware of.
There are a couple of well known and popular reasons why you can get shadowbanned:
- Using Bots and Scheduling Software
If you are using Instagram bots or software for your Instagram, then you are violating the terms and services of Instagram. Scheduling software allows posting images on your behalf regularly, follow and unfollow users, like pictures, comments on pictures etc. These actions are forcing the application to send push notifications to more users by abusing the system, and that is a violation of terms and conditions as you are exploiting the software abilities in an unethical way.
- You are abusing Hourly Limits
Instagram has a limitation of likes, comments, messages per day. If you are abusing those limitations, then surely, you will be penalized for it. Some penalties mean that you cannot like, comments or follow others anymore. This can last to a couple of days, or in a shadowban or a ban of the account, which is, of course, everyone wants to avoid.
- Broken Hashtags
Most of the time the platform categorizes your content by hashtags which are being used. Which is why it is essential to choose hashtags which are in a very unsaturated, not shary or grey area niche. For example, if you use an innocent hashtag #beautyblogger, then might be it can overrun with inappropriate or adult content, which can count as spam and Instagram can take notice of it and ban your account. Keep in mind that this is just an example and Instagram is not that radical, nevertheless, this is a flag which is not beneficial for your account.
How to avoid being shadowbanned?
- Stop using automated software and bots
It is essential to remove all kinds of bots and software to report, reschedule, and re-comment on your account posts. The reason is if you are using multiple accounts with the same bot, the chances you might get suspected when using same IP address is very high.
It is always better to have 100 followers who love you and support you than to have millions of followers who do not know you, or are bots themselves or irrelevant to your niche.
- Take a break of 48 hours from actions from your account
Please hold on and do not get your account overloaded with a bundle of images, comments, likes, personal messages, follow and unfollows. It might be considered as spamming if you are doing more than the limit that has been defined for your account. IF your account has more than 5k, 10k, 25k, 50k, 100k of followers, the limits for actions differ.
Conclusion
Use Instagram responsibly, do not use bots, engage with your audience, get into a niche which can bring value to the followers and audience of your account. Do not abuse the system, because it will backfire on you sooner or later.
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