TIL my instagram account got shadowbanned for using the same hashtag 3 days in a row

I run a small page where I post photos of my hiking trips. Last week I used #exploreoregon every single day for like a week. Suddenly my reach dropped from like 300 likes a post to maybe 15. I thought it was just a slow week until I checked my account status and it said some of my hashtags were flagged. Had no idea repeating hashtags was a thing that gets you penalized. Anyone else run into this or know what the actual limit is?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_eric1d ago

Oh man that sucks, I got hit the same way with #PNWhiking last year. What ended up working for me was cycling through like 10 to 15 different hashtags and never using the same one more than once every 3 or 4 days. Still not sure what the exact limit is but I treat it like they're watching for lazy spam behavior.

hannahcraig1d ago

Yeah @the_eric that cycling trick sounds smart. I did something similar with my local hiking tags and it finally stopped the shadowban after weeks of nothing.

willowr968h ago

Oh man, a buddy of mine runs a food blog and had the exact same thing happen with #foodie. It took him like two weeks of switching up his tags completely before his reach came back.