What is Shadowbanning?
Shadowbanning is a relatively new concept that is the practice of blocking or partially blocking someone from interacting in an online community in a way that it isn’t readily apparent to the user that they have been banned.
How do I know if I have been Shadowbanned?
If you’ve seen a large decrease in engagement recently it could well be that you’ve been shadowbanned; by its nature, you’re not supposed to know it’s happened so you can only ever guess it’s happened to you.
How do I avoid this?
Firstly, making yourself seem less like a bot - if your social media doesn’t have your details, personal or business-related you’re going to look more and more like a bot to the scary social media platform algorithms. Another thing you can do is create content that opens itself up to a wider audience - Instagram’s algorithm is designed to remove content that it doesn’t want there, this generally means content that is NSFW (Not Safe For Work), but it can also penalise content that it considers “inappropriate” regardless of whether or not it breaks TOS (terms of service). Another common reason for being shadowbanned is bots; using automated programs, even if not using them for nefarious reasons, can cause social media algorithms to flag users as spamming bots causing them to be shadowbanned, examples of this can be Paper.li a content aggregation tool that can automatically post to social media, due to its nature it often gets picked up in this aspect and causes shadowbans.
I’ve been shadowbanned - what now?
Most of the time contacting support is your best chance. Algorithms cast a wide net and even though they stop spammers and scammers regularly they catch people in their net fairly regularly. This results in innocent people - like you being caught in that net and suffering. If you can make a legitimate case as to why you shouldn’t be shadowbanned it's likely that you won’t be shadowbanned anymore. Once unbanned, keeping your posting schedule diverse and TOS compliant is key alongside posting trustworthy links and having a profile that’s completely filled out.
Being shadow-banned can be devastating - but it’s not the end of the world. If you believe your business pages have been shadow-banned, or you are just struggling with content, getting in touch with experts like us can help you to regain what you’ve lost through diverse posting schedules, contacting moderators on your behalf, and many other useful tricks.
