Is Instagram Shadowbanning you?
Is Instagram Shadowbanning you?
Soooooo… enter 2026 and suddenly my views are abysmal. Like, REALLY REALLY bad.
Posts that normally average 10k views are now lucky to hit 3k. 😵💫
If you’re feeling the same way, listen up because this is where I’m going to show you how to tell if IG is shadowbanning you (and what to do about it).
First things first is you have to go into your posts one by one (yes, you need to do this) and see what percentage your “Explore” is…. anything less than 1% consistently and you’re in trouble:
🟢 Healthy = 5–20%+
🟡 Weak / At Risk = 2–4%
🔴 Unhealthy = Under 1% consistently
As you can see from my screenshot above, mine in this particular post was .3% (ARGHHHHHH) and the five posts before that were about the same.
HORRENDOUS.
So this is what I did to see if I was being shadowbanned (yes), and if so how I fixed it…
Okay, so let’s walk through the steps…
Go to your IG profile
Tap the three bars (☰) in the top right
Tap “Settings & Privacy”
Scroll to “Account Status”
Look to see if ANY of your statuses have an orange “!” mark
If anything’s flagged (ie, if not all the options are in GREEN checkmarks), there’s your answer!
If you are being restricted, then do these steps:
Tap the flagged content
Hit Request Review
Explain why your content doesn’t violate IG’s policy. In my humble experience I wrote two sentences that the content someone deemed that wasn’t part of IG’s policy actually was.
Within 24 hours of requesting a review, the block was lifted.
Just like that, I was back!
My advice?
Check your Account Status weekly. Think of it like brushing your teeth but for your business.
And I do wanna point out that the algorithm isn’t out to get you as all of this is truly automated. You just need to be aware and advocate for your content bc if you don’t do it, no one else will.
I’ll keep sharing tips like these to help you protect and grow your creator brand with actual strategy, not speculation. So do me a fav and Subscribe, will ya?
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XX Idalia