Have you experienced a sudden drop in your engagement rates or lost a significant chunk of followers overnight? If you have, then your account may have been… SHADOW BANNED! Social Media Agency provides safeguard against such arbitrary moves

Shadowbanning is a practice that social media operators do where they block a particular user’s social media account so that the user is unaware of it. As a retort, the user’s content will not show on anyone’s feed, and their visibility will reduce dramatically. It’s like they have transformed into ghosts.

There are numerous reasons behind shadowbanning, the most notorious being that social media platforms want you to engage in paid promotions. It has also been recorded that Facebook demotes the posts that are controversial so that fewer people will see them.

So, is there a way to prevent your account from being shadowbanned? Yes, there is. Here are four valuable tips that will prevent your account from being shadowbanned.

Keep it Real

One of the main aspects you should consider is how your viewers could perceive your behavior and content. You need to check whether your content is misleading or the hashtags that you have used are wrongly used.

While marketing has become a significant aspect of social media traffic, many people still surf through Instagram, Facebook, or any other platform to relax and engage with friends and family. So, if your behavior or content obstructs that, your account is likely to be shadowbanned.

Avoid relying on automating apps

It would help if you did not rely on third-party automating apps to do your engagement activities. Interact with your customers and followers directly. Respond to their comments with honest and genuine answers, which can assure a satisfactory dialogue.

This shows that the account is handled by an actual person and not a bot. Furthermore, it would help if you also refrained from using one-word comments, like ‘Nice’ or ‘Okay,’ or excessively use emojis because they can be misunderstood as auto-generated replies.

Don’t use banned hashtags

A common practice performed by all social media platforms is that they ban hashtags that are deemed explicit or dangerous or the ones that go against their terms and conditions. Majoritively, these are hashtags that promote nudity, violence, or disobedience in society.

You should avoid using them at all costs. You will find lots of articles and consolidated lists to help you navigate which hashtags have been banned. Here is one such list that we have found: http://thedatapack.com/banned-hashtags-instagram

Don’t buy followers

It has become a common practice that people buy followers for their social media profiles, which are largely just fake accounts. This is a major risk. Not only is it unethical, but it has also been proven that buying followers won’t even increase your engagement rate.

If a reviewer finds out that most of your followers are fake, you will get shadowbanned.

Conclusion

While these tips cannot give you a 100% guarantee that your profile will not be shadowbanned, they can help you extensively in preventing that.

However, if you ever encounter a situation that is not covered in these tips, ask yourself – “Would I like it if someone did this to me?” or “Does this seem ethical?”. If the answer is yes, then you are good to go.

Until next time, when we Decode yet another aspect of social media marketing.