10 Tips To Prevent Being Shadowbanned or Disabled on Instagram

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are based on my personal opinions and experience. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. Always consult a medical professional for any medical or cannabis questions.

If you're reading this, you either have gotten your Instagram account shadowbanned before, you believe your Instagram account is currently shadowbanned, or you know someone who has experienced this. This is an extremely frustrating situation to be in and it is very common for businesses, brands, and creators. In this article, I am going to share 10 tips to prevent your Instagram account from being shadowbanned or disabled.

This article is going to specifically deep dive into shadowbans. If you currently have a disabled Instagram account, please check out my post on How To Get Your Disabled Instagram Account Back. For this article, I will be discussing what a shadowban is, and how you can prevent it from happening to you in the future, which will ultimately prevent you from being disabled in the future. If you prefer to watch this content in video form, be sure to check out my YouTube video.

Disclaimer

The contents in this article have not been verified by Instagram and I cannot guarantee you that by following the steps outlined, you will not be shadowbanned or disabled. However, I can say that I am experienced when it comes to this situation, as I myself have been disabled by Instagram four times in two years, having been shadowbanned on multiple occasions, I have luckily been able to get my account back every time and have removed my shadowban.

Having gone through this process many times, and speaking with other businesses and creators who have experienced the same situation, I'm confident that the tips I am about to share with you will help in some way. And even if it doesn't, it's worth a try. At the end of the day, no one truly knows how Instagram handles disabled Instagram accounts and whether they actually shadowban, so it's really up to us, the community, to share what we've learned with each other. Over the past two years, I've kept a document of all the things that happen when one gets their account disabled or shadowbanned, and all the different methods that you can follow to prevent being shadowbanned in the future.

My Personal Experience with Getting My Instagram Account Shadowbanned

I've personally been shadowbanned on multiple occasion. If you're familiar with my content, you'll know that I am extremely careful with my content to ensure that it does not violate the community guidelines. 99% of my content is cryptic and never explicitly mentions cannabis.

However, this is not to say that I didn't in the past when I first started my Instagram account. When I first started posting cannabis content on Instagram, I had no idea that you weren't allowed to post cannabis on the platform and I had no real understanding of shadowbans. I thought that because cannabis was legalized in Canada, I was able to post whatever I want. I was very wrong. Instagram is a global platform, and with most of the world still treating cannabis as an illegal substance, you cannot freely talk about cannabis, even if it's for personal consumption.

Nonetheless, I've learned my lessons the hard way, and nowadays I never mention cannabis. And if I do, it's always eluding to cannabis and never explicitly saying or typing the word out. For example, all my recipe videos will say "herb infused xyz" and I'll only use emojis to explain what I'm trying to say. I also don't use any cannabis related hashtags. I'd rather not risk it nowadays.

Are Shadowbans The Same As Getting Disabled?

Shadowbans are not the same as getting disabled. In my opinion, getting disabled is more serious than shadowbans because you lose full access to your account.

Shadowbans have never been ever confirmed by Instagram but I am certain that they are real because I myself have experienced it several times, along with many other businesses and creators. Shadowban is the concept/theory that Instagram will prevent your account and content from being shown to your followers and to the rest of the Instagram community if you have violated their guidelines.

I can confirm that shadowbans exist because when I was shadowbanned, I noticed that if I posted an in-feed post with a generic hashtag like #cake for example, and I would immediately search up the hashtag to see "Recent" posts - my photo would not show up. This is a clear indicator that I was being shadowbanned because normally my posts would show up in the "Recent" posts section. I also noticed that during this time, my analytics were plummeting. My reach and engagement was significantly impacted as I was not reaching or engaging as many users versus the prior week.

10 Tips to Prevent Yourself From Being Shadowbanned or Disabled on Instagram

• Don’t use banned hashtags: Instagram deliberately blocks and hides certain hashtags from being shown on Instagram if a piece of content includes that specific hashtag. I recommend checking your hashtags daily (if possible) and prior to using them, to ensure that you aren’t using any banned hashtags in your content. I would also stay away from using hashtags that are not banned but could potentially be banned in the future. For example, #420 was a hashtag that was banned in 2021 but in early 2022 Instagram unbanned the hashtag. You want to make sure that all your content has clean hashtags because you never know when Instagram is going to ban a hashtag, which means that you will have to clean up the hashtags in your old content.
• Don’t use banned words in text or captions: Even if you don’t use banned hashtags, I would avoid using those specific words in your copy. For example, "cannabis” is a banned hashtag, which would make me believe that the word is probably not well received by bots on Instagram if you were to just use it in your captions. I like to be cryptic and just allude to cannabis by using words like “plants”, “herbs”, “infused”, or even emojis. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I’ve seen some people use words like “c@nnabis”, however I believe that Instagram is smart enough to detect that this means cannabis, so you’re probably better off just using the word “plants” because it has such a broad meaning.
• Try to get verified: Getting verified is probably one of the most difficult things to do on Instagram because the social media platform does not grant it to anyone. You must be a legitimate business or public figure that has influence amongst the community. Getting verified is a process, but it is well worth it if you can secure the blue checkmark. I’ve heard that if you get verified, you could potentially be assigned an Instagram account manager who could help you if you were to ever run into issues with your account in the future (ie. getting disabled or reported).
• Don’t buy followers: Instagram knows when you purchase followers and they do not like that. I personally have not done this before but I’ve read many articles and heard directly from individuals who have that when they bought followers, Instagram penalized their account by reducing their reach and shadowbanning them.
• Be careful with what you say in the DMs: I am 99% certain that Instagram reads through your direct messages, especially if you were to get reported via the DMs as they will have to vet through the evidence to see if you violated the community guidelines. Never discuss any sales or solicit sales or discuss anything to do with price, cost, value, or anything illegal. I recommend sending an auto message reply to anyone that messages you with a business proposal to have them contact you via email instead. If a business is serious about reaching out to you, they will contact you through email rather than through direct messages.
• Use your real identity when signing up for Instagram: If you were to ever get your Instagram account disabled or logged out, you will be asked to verify your identity. At this point, you need to provide personal information that matches the information that was used to sign up for the Instagram account. You can check these details by going to your Settings, Account, and Personal Information.
• Avoid 3rd party apps: I know there are many 3rd party apps that business and creators use to schedule content which is fine, but I would just avoid having too many points of authentication. Instagram may detect that there are multiple platforms trying to access your account and in turn ask you to verify your account. You just want to avoid giving Instagram any chance to audit your account.
• Avoid hosting giveaways: Although giveaways are allowed on Instagram, I would recommend staying away from it especially if you are a cannabis account that has already been flagged. The reason being is that you want to avoid using words where it may sound like you are giving away an item of value that could be related to cannabis. This has personally happened to me in the past where I was trying to run a giveaway for a kitchen device and sweater, and my post was removed for illegal activity. There was nothing to do with cannabis in the photos, descriptions, or hashtags. Another issue with giveaways is the rise of spam accounts. It’s happened to me several times and other businesses, where spam accounts will create an account to impersonate you and try to message your followers to let them know they’ve won, and in turn try to get them to click links or provide personal information.
• Authentically engage and interact with your community: Instagram doesn’t like spammy accounts meaning if you mass blast likes, messages, and posts, Instagram could flag your account and tell you to stop interacting so much. Use Instagram as a normal human, not like a robot.
• Do not sell or solicit anything related to cannabis: This goes without saying but I feel like alot of businesses haven’t really understood this fully. Even if you don’t actively say “go to my website and buy this 3.5g of weed for $40”, Instagram still has ways to detect posts that solicit or allude to potential sales. I would recommend avoid using any words that relate to the value of an item, the price, where to purchase, or even recommending any product that is related to cannabis. Unless you are extremely cryptic about your word choices, I would avoid conducting any sales on cannabis on Instagram (even if you’re a legitimate and licensed retailer), and instead use your Instagram as a branding tool, not a sales and marketing tool.