Category: Truth

11.10.2017

Happy Friday bebes. We cool? I’m cool. It’s the best day of the week, there’s margaritas and tacos (said like taycos because I like the mid west and I want you to feel that from me) in my immediate future, and it’s a “holiday” at the office so the six of us that showed up today are cruising the day out for what seems like the longest 8 hours you could be in an office for.

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Education on the Instagram Shadow Ban: What I Do Know

Happy Thursday you guys. It’s almost the weekend and I don’t know weather to cry or drink about it or both so there’s that. It’s been a hellacious week.

As most of you know by now, since Facebook bought our beloved Instagram, the term “shadow ban” is making its way around, adding mass panic to the already menacing new algorithm and I wanted to talk to you about it because it happened to me first hand. Without realizing it, rumors are spiraling and next thing you know you heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend you were caught up in a real life version of REO Speedwagon’s Take It On. Yikes. I’m here to help. 

 I’ve had so many questions from people and so many DM’s, and also friends that were and are still affected that I wanted to share with you all my research and help that I was able to find during this time I was shunned by the one platform I didn’t think would disappoint me. (Which is exactly why we all have trust issues, Instagram, you’re being like that one oatmeal raisin in a batch of chocolate chip. Can’t even deal with that type of ill fate right now, we are FRAGILE, ok?!)

So I also want to say before I get started that these opinions (not facts) are solely mine and mine alone on this pressing issue. I can only talk about what happened to me, and the steps I took to fix it. I’ll share some resources I found really helpful at the end of this blog. If you or someone you know is affected by the shadow ban, call 1-888-plz-halp. (No don’t, just kidding that was for shits and gigs and dramatic effects.) This blog is in no way endorsed, affiliated, or sponsored by the shadow ban.

So from what I found, the easiest way to start with this is to just explain in my own terms what the shadow ban meant for me. I’m saying the name because if I don’t, it only increases the fear of the thing itself. Mad respect, Hermione.

What It IS:

Since we’re referencing HP here, for the sake of things, think of the shadow ban like this: The Dementor of Instagram sucking out your soul. It kills your engagement on multiple levels, like hiding your posts on public hashtags that you use to aquire new potential followers, or even sometimes your entire profile. It kills your creativity and drive. Your self confidence. Multiple things. Yes, yes we preach all the time,  “My art is for me” and yes ok, I get it- that’s so true. But the unavoidable elephant in the room is that small, big, or no business owner alike, each and every one of us gets a taste of euphoria from a rising follower or like count. Admit it. I just did. If you can’t be discovered through hashtags and searches from sharing your art with the world, which is literally the whole way of discovering a new person on Instagram, and the world can’t find you, then how will they know you exist and are making pretty things in your home state of virgniadaholifornia? And then how will you grow? How will you maintain your confidence level? How will you… even?

Signs, Symptoms, & Severities

WARNING: EACH CASE IS SO DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT. THESE ARE JUST SOME SCENARIOS OF THE SHADOW BAN. It seems some bans last for days or weeks even. Luckily for me, my account was only affected for three days that I am truly aware of. I consider myself very fortunate.

If you have noticed a considerable decline in your likes and follows on a daily basis, then most likely Instagram has decided that your posts are spam. I can’t explain what they consider to be spam or not, since there is no admission of this even being a real term but, you know it’s on the internet so it’s true. End of story.  Just trust me on this- if it happens to you, you’ll know immediately.

A hashtag can be banned all together (and they will tell you that much on the hashtag page) or just your posts from it. Solid evidence is to use a hashtag on a post and then have an account that DOES NOT follow you (thus emulating the process of a new follower / discovery) check the hashtag. Use a smaller one with less participation or one you’ve made up yourself to lessen the scroll time for a better chance of your post showing up at the top. If that account can’t see your post, then it’s banned from that hashtag thus lowering your engagement level to your post and indirectly, your account as a whole.

I noticed specifically on Monday of this week that my newest posts were being banned, not necessarily my entire account. My content wasn’t showing up in any of the hashtags I was using. I am a perpetual relevance hashtagger, so I was using my iPad tags on iPad posts, and painting tags on painting posts, etc. I know some people aren’t like that and they will hashtag the color of the paint on the wall in the background of their outdoor nature photo, but guys, hear me out. I was devastated when my target audience (hashtag relevance 101) was not able to find my content. What I did find on spam was that if a seemlessly innocent hashtag has been infiltrated with bot activity (AGAIN, HASHTAG RELEVANCE IS SO IMPORTANT, YALL) then Insta could consider your irrelevant post as spam. Make sense?

Something else that can happen is your account will be completely banned from any and all searches but it is important to remember that each case is different. There is no consistency here. The shadow ban test floating out there has also not been proven accurate so if you are judging your engagement level solely on that then you’re not doing yourself justice. Look with your own eyes. I have only seen a few cases where Instagram has shut down comment ability and/or shutting the account totally down. This is something totally different from when Instagram addressed their security breach in their blog which you can read on your own. I did. Don’t expect the answers you seek.

On the Mend

Some things you can do to help lift this darkness is to lower your participation level in your account for a few days. For me this was easy to do, since I was literally crushed to find out that no one new would be able to see my account. I didn’t feel like painting or creating and I ignored my iPad like it was a bad breakup. I checked some messages here and there in my small circle, mostly, but I responded to zero comments and liked zero pictures because in all reality Instagram does have comment and like limits. I wanted to make sure Insta knew my comment sprees were because I liked everyone for real, not because I was a robot. I don’t know the time frame such as if it’s per day or per hour, but you can read about them in the Terms and Conditions if you are a body that has time for that. (I did on my hiatus.)

I strongly suggest reporting the problem in your settings tab multiple times a day.  Instagram’s T&C’s explain how to report a problem. Be specific in your statements, but don’t over analyze. I said ” Hello, my content is not showing up in the public hashtag pages I am using. I posted on an iPhone 7 from the latest version of Instagram. Please help me fix this. Thank you.” All the articles I read said to avoid saying your engagement is low because this is not Instagram’s problem. (Technically.) Yes, you’ll be reporting to the same robots that consider you the robot probably, and while there’s massive irony in that, at least it is documented. I believe this does help. Feel free to use my statement above in your own reports and alter it as you see fit.

Try deleting the app and staying logged out for a few days. As of Monday insta has a new update, so I would install the latest version and log back in. This may allow your account to reset.

I also went through and cleaned up my profile. Instead of deleting the hashtags off of posts, I deleted some posts in their entirety from #FRIDAYLETTERSWITHLO because I mean I was drunk and obnoxious probably and like.. I legit spammed once or fifty times ok? So for good measure (and better aesthetics) I cleaned up my act a little bit. For now, I’ve also decided to end Friday letters. Just for now, calm down. I want to see how this pans out. The next day, I kid you not, my account was functioning normally and I had 15 new lettering account content based followers. (Something I also noticed was that while I was banned I did have a small number of followers still happening, just all random types of people that seemed to have no interest in hand lettering. Just thought that was weird. Bots?)

I stopped posting six times a day. I’m trying now to use my stories more and only do about two or so actual posts. I lowered my hashtags as well on each post and I am now alternating the ones I use daily. My engagement is back to what I know as normal as far as I can see, but I am still taking these precautions since I don’t know if it can happen again.

I have several articles saved and a Google doc from @jesstipletters which she openly invited anyone to message her about to receive. I have it as well if you don’t know her and want to get it from me on her behalf. It’s an excellent read.

Please also visit change.org and search for Adele Giles’ shadow ban petition. You can sign it and add yourself to list of people ready to keep fighting this.

This was my all time fav article to date. Insanely helpful:

 

Alex Tooby and the Shadow Ban

 

If you guys have any questions, please message me.  If I can help, you know I will.

 

Loves,

L