When Instagram Shadow Bans or Soft Blocks You
Posted June 09, 2017
Has your Instagram follower growth fallen off a cliff? Has the new algorithm rendered you invisible to your current followers? Are your hashtags no longer bringing you new views? And have you blamed yourself, thinking that maybe your art is stale, your photos boring, your Stories irrelevant? And have you tried many new improvements with little or no results, until self doubt starts to eat at your creativity like slugs in a garden? Me. Too.
I'm a chronic researcher. Another way to say that is I'm curious- maybe even a teeny bit nosy. I found plenty of helpful tips on Instagram Shadow Banning. I did the suggested fixes. It helped a bit. I began getting more likes per post, but my Follower growth was still sludgy. In my Notifications I could see an average of 25-30 new Followers a day. My growth should have gone up by 100 every 3-4 days. Yet I would not advance to the next 100 for weeks at a time. I reported the problem several times.
I discovered this website that tracks your daily followers. Alarm bells went off! On the same days that I was seeing new follower growth of 25-30 people, I was losing followers overall! My count was going down! A Google search for that problem led me to the lesser known issue of Instagram's Soft Block. Take note of #7 on that list! I found the best answers for why my follower count was stuck here. I still have not found out why my numbers were going down. But I did find out how to fix it- which is just as good! I asked my followers for help in this post.
And blessings flowed! I can never thank you all enough. You've saved me. My follower account has risen by even more per day than before my problem started. So here are all the things that I found helped:
1) I took a 3 day break from Instagram- no posts and no peeking.
2) I asked for help, and found out this is happening to many people. It didn't feel so personal then! I also shared insights and learned some new tips.
3) I put hashtags in my title, not the comments. I am now experimenting with no hashtags. That might be my preference. I think no hashtags or just 1-2 are getting better results.
4) I am only checking IG 4X a day max. Checking too often now makes you look like a bot. So does replying to comments too quickly.
5) I found out that comments help posts show up. That's probably why giveaways work so well. I am now commenting on accounts who have helped me more rigorously. We can help each other!
Hope this helps you out. If you have other suggestions please leave them in the comments. I will try to reply to all questions, too. One thing I love about Instagram is that we can learn from and grow with each other. You are my creative support! Let me be yours once in awhile. Let's use Instagram to find more beauty and enchantment.