Very recently I wrote a piece on my facebook page about the manipulation of our followers on Instagram.  I noticed a steep drop in my follower growth which I first attributed to maybe reaching my limit in followers. This however had me wondering when someone offered me a  service to break this trend. I realized that I was not imagining this and that IG does actually have a way of manipulating what happens to your posts, your hashtags that you use and subsequently the engagement that you have with other users on the platform.  My first suspicion was that it is another way of making money because according to other sources as well, Instagram wants you to pay for people to see your posts. Especially if you have a business account.

Today I stumbled across a website that actually gave it a name.  Shadowbanning.  It is obviously implemented by what the clever people call algorithms.   IG has the means of “blocking” your posts from appearing in the normal feeds and hashtags searches. It also means that new people might never see your posts at all making it impossible for you to gain more followers.  Today I am totally convinced that I am/was a victim of shadowbanning.  There are websites and blogs where people give some suggestions on how you can break this spell, but in the end you are still a puppet in the hands of the IG master. The main thing is not to act like a bod on IG, liking too many posts on one occasion, using too many popular hashtags, following too many people at once.  There are suggestions like changing your business account to a personal account or staying a way from IG for a couple of days.  What ever you do, the thing is we are being manipulated and that is my real issue.  If your follower count stagnated don’t give up because apparently it does go away after a while.  Mine however has been stagnant for months, so maybe I have reached the limit. Like I do for most tings in my life right now I won’t give up and keep posting because I love photography and I know there are true followers on my account that still wants to see my pictures.