Avoiding Instagram Bans & Limits to Follow
Instagram giveaways are extremely popular and can be fun to enter and even win. But with a busy giveaway lover comes frustration when one day you open the app and can't comment.
Instagram has very clear limits on almost every action on their platform. With giveaways those limits get pushed and the average account can get banned pretty easily.
To avoid being punished by Instagram understanding the limits is a huge bonus.
Why Does Instagram Ban You
They ban you for not following their guidelines and rules. All actions on Instagram have their limits and if you don't comply they essentially spank you. After enough spanks they can permanently remove you.
If you can't follow their rules they are swift to remind you who is the boss, and that can really put a hamper into entering giveaways.
What Types of Instagram Bans There Are
There are three major types of Instagram bans that you could experience.
- Action Block
- Shadow Ban
- Ban
An action block will stop you from doing actions just as the title says. You get an action block for being a spammer. Commenting on way too many posts too fast. Or following too many accounts too fast. The worst thing you can do is go to another person's account "Following list" and start following everyone they follow. Actions like these are not only yuck, they will get you action banned and eventually permanently banned from Instagram.
An action ban could last from a couple hours into days. It all depends on how Instagram feels that day. You won't be able to tag, respond to messages or sometime even follow any new accounts.
A shadow ban is something Instagram sneakily denies is real. But many techies have proven that to be false. And have proven it does in fact exist. This is when Instagram makes sure very few people see your posts that you have hash-tagged. So if you did an entry for a giveaway by posting a picture on your feed and then applying the requested hashtag your post won't actually show. The giveaway sponsor won't see it.
If you want to know if you are shadow banned this article shows you how to test, check and prevent it.
An Instagram Ban is exactly as it sounds. They completely close down your account and give you no time limit. It could be forever, or it could be until you battle it out with customer service which could take weeks and months.
Ways to Get Banned on Instagram and Limits
There are different things you do on Instagram during your time on the app. We will go over the actions you may be taking that are getting you any of the three types of bans.
1. Following and Unfollowing
We all want to clean out our accounts sometimes and unfollow certain accounts. For following and unfollowing there is a limit of only 200 of these actions per day. So go slow when following new accounts and even slower when unfollowing.
2. Liking too Often
Instagram has a limit of 60 likes per hour. So if you are just liking everything you see and going over that limit, you will be in Instagram's sights to be action blocked. Be picky about what you are liking. Save your likes for contest posts if you are using Instagram for entering giveaways.
If you have a very large following and a few year old account you can like up to 120 posts before being action blocked.
3. Commenting too often
Commenting limits are no more than 200 a day. We all know when entering giveaways we can reach that number very fast. Especially if we are also interacting with friends and family members accounts too.
4. Messaging Too often
Instagram has a limit of between 50 - 80 messages a day maximum before they think your account is spamming. If your Instagram account is very new don't send more than 10 -20 messages a day.
5. Hashtags
Instagram encourages hashtags but will also punish you if they don't match what you have posted, there are more than 30 hashtags per post and using banned hashtags.
6. Tagging Too Much.
Tagging more than 20 people on a singular post will get you action banned. If you really want a chance at winning a giveaway that says tag unlimited people, stagger the tags. Use the Instagram save function and go back the next day and tag more people. Just stay under the 20 limit.
7. Buying Followers
Buying followers no matter how easy it sounds will get you booted from Instagram and it could be forever. Never waste your money on buying followers. 90% of them are bots and not quality followers.