5 reasons why you’re being restricted on Instagram

Previously published on raisingjayandabel.com on JANUARY 6, 2016

Recently, Instagram has been cracking the whip on us Instagram users. If you don’t already know, Instagram users are restricted to how many likes, comments, follows and unfollows per hour you can make to block out spam accounts. Being restricted on Instagram is the worst!

5 reasons why you’re being restricted on Instagram

I believe you can only like 350 pictures per hour and your “following” limit is maxed out at 7500.

Now, this may seem like a far cry when you think of the “normal” Instagram user. However, social media has become a job in itself, and a lot of companies use Instagram as a marketing tool. I know for me, commenting and liking (aka interacting with my followers) is of HIGH importance to me and too many other bloggers.

Recently, I was “blocked” from captioning my own photos and replying to comments for one week!!! Now, a few of you may think it’s funny…but it wasn’t. Instagram fuels my blog. From monthly page views, daily page views, engagement percentage, and all that nifty stuff we bloggers work hard at keeping high were drastically affected that week.

So, this got me thinking. Why was I being restricted to simply liking photos? I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.

After some research, it came to my attention that I wasn’t the only one getting blocked from commenting on Instagram. I had other Instagram users and bloggers contacting me about this and vice versa. We all shared the moments leading up to getting locked out! We were all trying to figure it out what could have triggered it so that we could prevent it from happening again.

As I predicted, all our answers were different. So I decided to make a list for all you snazzy Instagram peeps so it doesn’t happen to you!

KEEP YOUR COMMENTING TO A MINIMUM

This includes how fast per minute you are commenting. As I mentioned before, I LOVE to interact with my followers, by replying to their comments and showing them some love on their personal pages, which means I comment A LOT. However, after this incident, I have been reducing my replies and bunching them all into one huge comment. I.E. If 30 people comment on one photo, I may group them into 3 groups of 10 instead of replying to each person individually. It may seem impersonal, but this is what’s working for me as of now and I am yet to be “blocked” again ?

WATCH OUT FOR YOUR HASHTAGS

Unfortunately, there has been some major misuse of certain hashtags pertaining to moms on Instagram, i.e. #momlife, #mom #mommy, etc. This is causing Instagram to block the accounts that use these certain hashtags. Always make sure to “research” your hashtags before making them a permanent hashtag that you use on any future photos.

KEEP YOUR FOLLOW FRIDAYS TO A MINIMUM

This one is specifically for bloggers. It turns out Instagram isn’t a fan of these. I have no idea why and don’t see the issue but with Instagram, you can never be too sure!

DONT OVER TAG

This is a zinger for me since many giveaways that I enter require you to tag friends for “extra entries”. I too, use this method to attract more entries. After 16 tags you are restricted from commenting or tagging for a few minutes (usually up to 10 minutes). Don’t quote me on that though, as I’m not 100% sure of this time increment since I personally haven’t timed it out. TIP: I’ve noticed, if you spread out the tags throughout the length of that particular giveaway, you can trick Instagram to let you tag more than 16 Instagram handles! So pretty much don’t go crazy all at once! HA! which leads me into….

DONT OVERDUE THOSE GIVEAWAYS

Ok, seriously, I know how hard it is to resist those giveaways! Who doesn’t love free stuff? With that being said, make sure to choose the giveaways you really want to enter and can’t say no to! Why do you ask? Because Instagram blocks and even shuts down pages that overdo it on the giveaways! There are different ways to spam your friends guys, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc. Instagram isn’t the only giveaway outlet ?

So that’s it my loves! I wish I could provide more detailed information about this but overall, I learned a lot about Instagram through this experience! When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!
xoxo,