Engagement issues

Nova2k · Oct 9, 2020

I've got a small influencer account (15k, posting 3x per week) , which was starting to build momentum but over the past year or so engagement has been dropping steadily.
Used to get ~2-5k likes per post with good hashtags reach, which went down to ~1k as my account grew / the algorithm changed.

The last 2 months or so things have turned for the worse as I've been unable to rank hashtags, with posts ranging from 0-200 hashtag impressions.
Strange thing is my followers are more engaged than ever as my content has significantly improved over time and impressions from homepage are much higher than they used to be.
Still hitting the ~1k level but almost exclusively from homepage and really missing out on growth.

Tried the suggestions like picking small hashtags in order to reach top posts etc, but still these posts will get like 30 hashtag impressions while my followers are breaking records on the 1st hour engagement?

No automation involved, only engaged in a small group with similar accounts (~5 other accounts).

Any idea what's going on here? Not really finding anything except for the generic advice and getting quite desperate since growth has basically become impossible.

TheGreyMatter · Oct 9, 2020

What are these posts which you make thrice a week?
Did you try reels? Did you upload IGTV videos? How often do you go live?

Recently, I have realized a lot of new users go inactive for long periods of time so to cover up their lack of likes and activity, you need to keep getting new followers and likes, that would only happen if you content keeps getting interesting and the social network will only give you attention if you give your attention to all its new features.

Addicted2instagram · Oct 9, 2020

what were you doing differently when the engagement was higher?
Were you doing follow/unfollow?
Posting more engaging content?
Were you liking and engaging on your own followers posts?

When my e.r went down I realized that I stopped liking peoples posts that I had been doing since it was small.

The other time I had bad E.R was when I used a bot on my account and it got shadow banned.

Have you been overdoing an actions? Overusing the same hashtags?

Nova2k · Oct 10, 2020

TheGreyMatter said:
What are these posts which you make thrice a week?
Did you try reels? Did you upload IGTV videos? How often do you go live?

Recently, I have realized a lot of new users go inactive for long periods of time so to cover up their lack of likes and activity, you need to keep getting new followers and likes, that would only happen if you content keeps getting interesting and the social network will only give you attention if you give your attention to all its new features.

Thanks for responding!

I'm a female fitness influencer that posts tips, body updates, workouts, modeling pictures, etc.
Have tried reels twice, so not that actively and no IGTV / Live. Just 3 posts per week and daily stories.

Addicted2instagram said:
what were you doing differently when the engagement was higher?
Were you doing follow/unfollow?
Posting more engaging content?
Were you liking and engaging on your own followers posts?

When my e.r went down I realized that I stopped liking peoples posts that I had been doing since it was small.

The other time I had bad E.R was when I used a bot on my account and it got shadow banned.

Have you been overdoing an actions? Overusing the same hashtags?

Thanks for responding!

I guess I was doing a bit more follow / unfollow and liking / commenting on posts from ppl that are not my followers.
Have been action banned a few times over the past years but this hasn't happened for a long time now.

From post perspective I've increased the frequency from 1-2x per week to 3x and my image/caption quality have gone up significantly.
I do use hashtags on all my posts but try to mix them up a bit although they're always similar and some of them would be there on most of my posts.
Posting a lot more stories as well, not using any hashtags there.

The strange thing is my engagement for the first 2 hours is higher than it has ever been since my followers love the content, but after that it just crashes since Instagram refuses to show it to ppl outside of my followers (hashtags).

From doing more research this seems to point in the direction of a shadow ban?
A couple months ago I did find out I had some banned hashtags on my account so I removed them and suddenly my new post skyrocketed again.
However this only lasted for 1-2 posts after which it immediately crashed down again.

Addicted2instagram · Oct 10, 2020

Nova2k said:
Thanks for responding!

I'm a female fitness influencer that posts tips, body updates, workouts, modeling pictures, etc.
Have tried reels twice, so not that actively and no IGTV / Live. Just 3 posts per week and daily stories.

Thanks for responding!

I guess I was doing a bit more follow / unfollow and liking / commenting on posts from ppl that are not my followers.
Have been action banned a few times over the past years but this hasn't happened for a long time now.

From post perspective I've increased the frequency from 1-2x per week to 3x and my image/caption quality have gone up significantly.
I do use hashtags on all my posts but try to mix them up a bit although they're always similar and some of them would be there on most of my posts.
Posting a lot more stories as well, not using any hashtags there.

The strange thing is my engagement for the first 2 hours is higher than it has ever been since my followers love the content, but after that it just crashes since Instagram refuses to show it to ppl outside of my followers (hashtags).

From doing more research this seems to point in the direction of a shadow ban?
A couple months ago I did find out I had some banned hashtags on my account so I removed them and suddenly my new post skyrocketed again.
However this only lasted for 1-2 posts after which it immediately crashed down again.

Can you post some screenshots of an old post with good engagement vs a new post with different? I will see if I find anything that may have caused it.

Otherwise it could be a shadow ban. My biggest account got shadow banned because I used the same hashtags too often. Took about six months to refurn to a decent level. I kept growing it though.

On a side note. When you do follow/ unfollow you will get more engagement as the people that follow back generally like a recent post. So, when you stop you will notice a decline.

Nova2k · Oct 10, 2020

Addicted2instagram said:
Can you post some screenshots of an old post with good engagement vs a new post with different? I will see if I find anything that may have caused it.

Otherwise it could be a shadow ban. My biggest account got shadow banned because I used the same hashtags too often. Took about six months to refurn to a decent level. I kept growing it though.

On a side note. When you do follow/ unfollow you will get more engagement as the people that follow back generally like a recent post. So, when you stop you will notice a decline.

Sure, please find an example below of a recent post (left) vs old post from 1 year ago (right).
The caption on left pic goes on with tips & tricks to motivate yourself to workout.

The new post would get close to 1k likes in 3 hours and than almost completely stop as it is not reaching hashtags.
The old one would reach 1k likes in 6 hours, but continue on for the next days since hashtags would pick up.

What strategy did you follow during the shadow ban period?

Some things I found while doing research on shadow bans:
- Delete all hashtags from old posts?
- Do a paid promotion for a small sum, could force the algorithm to remove the shadowban as you are now a paying customer?
- Don't use any hashtags for a couple of weeks?

Found something on copyrighted music causing issues for some people, I do have some workout videos with music?

Arafel187 · Oct 10, 2020

Addicted2instagram said:
My biggest account got shadow banned because I used the same hashtags too often.

How do you know that your account shadow banned because of that?

I try to use 5 the same hashtags in all my posts, and 19-21 different.

Addicted2instagram · Oct 10, 2020

Nova2k said:
Sure, please find an example below of a recent post (left) vs old post from 1 year ago (right).
The caption on left pic goes on with tips & tricks to motivate yourself to workout.

The new post would get close to 1k likes in 3 hours and than almost completely stop as it is not reaching hashtags.
The old one would reach 1k likes in 6 hours, but continue on for the next days since hashtags would pick up.

View attachment 148690

What strategy did you follow during the shadow ban period?

Some things I found while doing research on shadow bans:
- Delete all hashtags from old posts?
- Do a paid promotion for a small sum, could force the algorithm to remove the shadowban as you are now a paying customer?
- Don't use any hashtags for a couple of weeks?

Found something on copyrighted music causing issues for some people, I do have some workout videos with music?

My shadow ban came from posting the same hastags over and over because I kept hitting big ones. I then got posts blocks where I couldn't post for 3-5 days. Then all of a sudden my engagement dropped a lot. I was hitting some hashtags but not like I used to.

Do you know how many followers did you have a year ago when it was doing well vs now?

Also what hashtags were you using back then vs now?

*You may not be using the correct ones if your account is but engagement is lower.

Addicted2instagram · Oct 10, 2020

Arafel187 said:
How do you know that your account shadow banned because of that?

I try to use 5 the same hashtags in all my posts, and 19-21 different.

I used 25 the same stupidly and got post blocked for a week or so. Then when I could post none of my posts showed in hashtags for while

Nova2k · Oct 10, 2020

Addicted2instagram said:
My shadow ban came from posting the same hastags over and over because I kept hitting big ones. I then got posts blocks where I couldn't post for 3-5 days. Then all of a sudden my engagement dropped a lot. I was hitting some hashtags but not like I used to.

Do you know how many followers did you have a year ago when it was doing well vs now?

Also what hashtags were you using back then vs now?

*You may not be using the correct ones if your account is but engagement is lower.

I had about 10k followers vs the 15k that I have now.
This growth doesn't sound too bad but has nothing to do with IG reach, I've been reposted by some larger accounts which has caused some spikes.

My hashtags were very similar, but indeed I repeatedly used some of them since I was able to hit big on them.
But I find it strange that posting 1-3 times per week would be considered spamming?

Because my reach has gone down so much I've been experimenting with smaller hashtags in order to be able to get top 9 etc like this forum suggests.
However, this has not helped as I still get almost no reach from them..

HustleTong · Oct 10, 2020

Take advantage of reels. With targeted hashtags & related viral content, you could reach a wider audience. What about engagement on stories?

Nova2k · Oct 10, 2020

HustleTong said:
Take advantage of reels. With targeted hashtags & related viral content, you could reach a wider audience. What about engagement on stories?

Yes will try doing more reels!
Story views have been going up steadily as I make more of them, but I haven't been using hashtags on those. Would you recommend that?

Engagement issues

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