My Instagram Account Was Compromised! 

First thing’s first, what should you do when your Instagram account is compromised? 

Have you ever gotten an in-app notification that says “It looks like you shared your password with a service to help you get more likes or followers, which goes against our Community Guidelines. Change your password with one of these services or you may get blocked from following, liking, and commenting”, or maybe a different one? You’re not the only one as you may have seen at Downdetector

Why Did I Receive This Message? 

It should be noted that over the years, Instagram has been exerting their best effort to kill off fake follower networks and accounts with inauthentic activity on social media that is Instagram.

These efforts have been ongoing since 2014 but only surfaced recently wherein they stated that fake likes and follows will be removed.

Why are they doing this? Revenue. 

The Facebook owned social media platform is exerting an effort in protecting their ad revenue, and Instagram wants you to grow followers using their Instagram ads and not 3rd party services.

Just like Facebook, they have been investing a lot on building an advertising platform and with this, they want to create a similar ads service on Instagram.

That being said, many users did not like Instagram’s method on this. People feel forced to pay more to advertise their brand to stay in the rank 

Clearly, this comes as no surprise given in the last few years Facebook has been investing heavily their resources into building advertising platform on Instagram. According to research, organic growth services are more effective and well-performing than ads.

What Does “Inauthentic Likes & Follows” Mean? 

On Instagram's press release, they mentioned that they will be reducing inauthentic activities in the platform, as a result, they are blocking actions or banning users.

What are the examples of an inauthentic activity?

  • Purchased likes which make your content more popular and engaging

  • Along with purchased followers in bulk to make your account look popular

  • Bot generated like and follow activities, and;

  • Bot generated comments that are automatically posted

Compromised Instagram Account User

Compromised Instagram Account User

Instagram Activities That Are Considered Authentic

Authentic activities on Instagram take time and effort when you want to build popularity within the platform, in this case, what is NOT considered “inauthentic?”

  • Manually done actions, especially liking, following and commenting. It is either done by your or someone in charge of your account; social media manager

  • Manually written and sent direct messages on Instagram and;

  • Manually viewed Instagram Stories

Will My Instagram Account Be Banned?

The chances of getting banned is pretty slim as long as you haven't heavily violated their terms repeatedly. Here are some ways to avoid it:

  • Ensure all your activities on Instagram are done manually with organic engagements
  • Use or get expert help with Instagram organic growth service or social media manager to grow your account manually

View this post on Instagram

knock knock it’s me, your plumber who doesn’t know anything about plumbing and just stands in front of your pipes throwing her head back dramatically

A post shared by ashley aka bestdressed (@best.dressed) on Jul 17, 2019 at 11:43am PDT

Instagram can limit some functions on your account temporarily with an “Action Blocked” message, making you unable to follow or like anything in the platform, but these don’t usually last long.

What Will Get My Account Banned? 

There are different ways to get your account banned or compromised and there is a moderate to high risk when you do the following:

  • Purchasing bulk followers

  • Using bots and other software solutions that aid in follower growth and;

  • Using mobile games or applications that aid in follower growth

Retrieve You Instagram Account

Retrieve Your Account After Being Compromised

What Are The Solutions?

An important thing to note is that you have to immediately stop participating in purchasing followers, likes or using bots.

If you’ve experienced an “Action Block” message, here are known ways to unblock it:

Lay Low On Follow & Like Activities For At Least 72 Hours

Overdosing your activity on Instagram is one of the most common reasons why you may receive an “Action Blocked” message, Hence, it’s best to take a break from any activities to get rid of this error. Give your account at least 72 hours of stopped activity. In line with this, block durations differ depending on the account because some errors can take up to 5-7 days.

Switch To Mobile Data

In addition to stopping your activities on Instagram, you should try switching to your mobile data when accessing your account. If you are on mobile, make sure you switch to your 4G/5G, or you can also enable the hotspot on your phone if you’re accessing your account on your computer.

Instagram might have accessed your IP address or banned it, which is why switching to mobile data can help.

Link Your Facebook Account On Instagram

Connecting your Instagram with Facebook will show more credibility and verification for Instagram that your account is used by a real person and not a bot because oftentimes, Instagram accounts that were specifically created to perform as a bot do not have any Facebook accounts connected to them which is why Instagram might see this as an issue. Here's how you link accounts to your Instagram

View this post on Instagram

the water is giving me fake toned arms and i don’t hate it

A post shared by dodie (@doddleoddle) on Jul 22, 2019 at 6:41am PDT

Change Your Mobile Device

You might have bought a second hand mobile phone and added multiple accounts on the similar phone, because of this, it's possible that Instagram have detected this and flagged your device. Try to use a different device that has not been overused and login your account there.

How To Avoid Getting The “Your Account Was Compromised” Message

Just like Google, Instagram’s algorithm changes a lot. Hence, each update might affect the reasons of you getting banned and how to avoid it.

As of now, here are some known ways to avoid getting your account compromised:

Use Organic Growth Services Only 

If you are using a 3rd party service, ensure that bots are not part of their process. Instead, they should be using only organic Instagram and social media agency like Social Uplifted to ensure that all  the actions are completed manually, not automatically. Furthermore, it maximizes the growth from within while it looks just like you did it yourself.

Don’t Abuse Instagram Activities

Slow down on whatever you’re doing. We know that too much of anything is not good, and this applies with Instagram. If you are on a follow spree, do it by batch. It’s understandable how tempting to follow as many users are you want all at once, but this will only put your account in a higher risk of getting blocked or worse, banned.

Run Paid Ads On Instagram & Facebook

There are a lot of ways to expedite the growth of account; paid ads. Despite doing manual actions, you can still come across the same issue. This kind of issue seems to happen randomly. Some may say that it’s an internal bug due to the constant test and release of new updates on Instagram.

Paying Facebook or Instagram to run paid ads may boost your account’s trust score and get faster support when you get in touch with these problems.

Not to mention, Facebook is known to even shut down accounts that spend a lot of budget on ads for no specific reason. This isn’t new, and it’s a part of the risk in social media marketing and being in the business.

We certainly understand how hard it is to manage every moving part of a business, you’re not alone in this. One of the best ways to manage these parts of your business is by directly getting expert help and manpower to delegate tasks so you can focus on your business.

Are you ready to leverage Instagram ads to grow your business? Let’s get started! 

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Author: Asher Aarons

Asher is a writer at Social Uplifted. When not at his working desk, he enjoys skateboarding like an enthusiast, jogging with his dog, Bertie in Venice Beach every morning. Either that or he could end up watching an entire season of Game of Thrones in one day.

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