Shadowbanning could be causing a drop in Instagram engagement. Your business page could be banned without you even knowing

Shadowbanning – perhaps this isn’t new to you. Perhaps your Instagram has been losing engagement like water through a pipe for some time now.

You’re not alone, in fact many businesses have been claiming a massive plummet in likes and comments, as well as new followers, on their Instagram.

Being one of social platforms with the highest rates of growth and engagement, it’s no wonder the shadowbanning issue is sending businesses into a frenzy. For many businesses, Instagram is where they acquire their largest number of clients – this is most obvious in the photography community.

So what is shadowbanning?

This unfortunate phenomenon is being coined “shadowbanning” – a term that originated from Reddit, where users are banned but only from the outsiders perspective. For all intents and purposes, the banned user interacts with the platform the same way – reading, writing, commenting, liking etc – but everyone else can no longer see them.

For Reddit, and many other platforms, shadowbanning isn’t some looming evil, an eye of Sauron preventing people and businesses from meeting new people and clients. Rather, shadowbanning is a way to prevent or hide disruptive or even offensive behaviour from the everyday user, while still allowing the disruptive person to read off the site.

This seems fair, after all we see every day the misuse of social media from trolls, or otherwise horrible people (sorry if this sounds harsh.)

However, the issue here with Instagram is that it doesn’t seem to be shadowbanning in the same way other platforms are. For Instagram, it seems to only be concentrating on Instagram Business accounts, and it only appears to be shadowbanning them from the hashtagging system.

This means that, unlike on other platforms, people are still able to find their pages and, if they follow them already, find their posts on their feeds. This means that a business with a significant following, or with a household name (we’re thinking Nike, Coca Cola, etc) will continue to find normal growth. However, a smaller business relying on the hashtagging system to grow their page or find new followers will find themselves suddenly at a roadblock.

This is because while for everywhere else their photos might be showing up – it won’t in the hashtagging system.

For example, this user has shown that when logged into their business account their photo shows up in the hashtag feed they’ve used, but once they log in to a separate account, it disappears.

While this feels a little like the twilight zone, unfortunately it’s not.

Instagram is claiming this to be a glitch or error, however the fact that they’re not really indicating any enthusiasm to rectify it, and their advice is simply to “post good content”, if we had to hazard a guess we’d probably say this shadowbanning thing was done on purpose.

Or if it wasn’t, it’s been way too convenient to fix.

But why would Instagram be happy with a shadowbanning glitch?

Well, the fact that it only appears to be affecting Business pages, and the hashtagging system in particular, can pretty much give us our answer.

If businesses can no longer rely on the highly effective tagging system previously offered by Instagram to generate leads and growth, businesses will have to start paying Instagram to get onto feeds.

Hopefully by now the penny has dropped.

Time and time again businesses have found social media algorithms updated to try and squeeze them into a corner where they can no longer organically reach audiences, and eventually have to start paying for the spaces they were originally getting for free.

This is understandable. Social media is a business itself these days, and it needs to make money, but where does shadowbanning leave the little guy?

What can you do, as a small or growing business, to continue to generate engagement and leads on Instagram without spending a load of money?

Unfortunately, there are two choices – but ultimately there’s really only one.

The first fix would be to immediately take your Instagram page off Business-mode and make it a “personal” one again.

Oh no! What does this mean for your business? Well, not a lot really. Unless you always generated a lot of calls and emails through the buttons you can set up on Instagram Business, or you rely very, very heavily on the menial analytics Instagram provides, then making your page personal is going to change very little.

You’re still able to have a description, a different name, and a link to whatever website you want. It can still be linked to your other social media platforms, and for all intents and purposes it will function exactly the same – only you’ll show up in hashtag feeds again (yay!)

However, if you really, really cannot live without your Instagram Business profile, then you’re left with one other option – be a fully engaged Instagram user. Go into hashtags and like other people’s posts, comment on them, and follow them. Get out there amongst the Instagram world and find new followers the same way normal users do – by making some friends!

But Instagram Business, shadowbanning, and paid advertising aside – you should already be doing this! No matter your page or algorithm setbacks, your main purpose for being on Instagram should be to interact with other users. You’re there to enjoy others content – not just your own.

So, have you been shadowbanned? If so, are you changing back to personal, or are you biting the bullet and paying for all of your engagement from now on instead? Let us know below!
And if you want to make sure your business is always on the ball when it comes to social media updates, check out our social media services to see if we can help you out. Want to get your ‘gram game rocking? We also do social media optimised photography, so why not check out our portfolio, or the photography services we offer.