Instagram shut me down

Last Thursday I woke up to some bad news.

I was sitting having my morning coffee, I opened up my Instagram and got a message from the Meta gods.

"Your account has been deactivated"

Apparently, they thought I did something that went against community guidelines and if I disagreed with this decision I could appeal. So I appealed.

Saturday morning I checked the account again and it was working normally, like nothing had happened. No explanation from Meta about what I may or may not have done wrong.

So even though I’m none the wiser I learned a few things and if you rely on Instagram for your business you should probably be doing what I did next.

This is a common issue

Waking up to find your Instagram account has been shut down is not uncommon. Even if you think you've been behaving like an angel sent from heaven, Meta can still shut you down with no explanation and (if you're lucky) re-activate you with the same lack of communication.

The first thing I did when I found myself in Instagram jail was reach out to my friends at Social Media Examiner. They're an outfit in California who's sole purpose is to educate on how to use all the platforms. They are my experts when I need help and, as this has never happened to me before I figured, if anyone can help me they can.

Turns out this has happened to them in the past too! So even the best experts are not immune.

So with their help and a little extra research I am busy setting up a little insurance so it doesn't happen again and if it does, I'm not lost in the dark. So here are the three things I recommend you do to mitigate the chances of this happening to you.

Download your data.

If the worst happens and Meta delete your account all together (which is possible) if you regularly download your data you will have access to a list of all your followers, the people you follow and all points in between.

You can easily do this on Instagram by clicking on the three lines and going to your activity. You’ll find the option to download data at the bottom and you can even schedule a monthly download.

Get verified.

You can pay for that blue tick which means you get increased account protection and better access to support. The details are in your accounts centre.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Now I’m a big believer that you will probably have more success on social media if you focus your attention on the one platform that suits you best rather than trying to be active on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok all at once. BUT have a back up just in case.

The one thing I’m going to do more of is encourage people to access my weekly emails – that way if the worst does happen again I still have a way to get in touch with the people who want to communicate with me.

What's the take home?

Meta are in charge. They can shut you down at any time and they don’t have to tell you why or warn you that they’re going to do it. If they did it to me and they did it to a team of well renowned social media experts with 155k followers – they can do it to you.

So if you value your Instagram account - it pays to do as much as possible to protect it.

By the way, if this was valuable to you, please stay connected by clicking on the button below and subscribing to my weekly emails.

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