Hello everyone
I see a lot of misinformation on here on a daily basis. I’d like to clear up some confusion around certain topics for the sake of newcomers mainly, and those who are on the fence about these specific issues.
If you have any further misunderstandings you’d like to contribute; please feel free to add your personal experiences to the comments section, but only if you’re 100% sure of what you’re talking about.
Myth I: Datacenter Procies Don’t Work
I’ve used datacenter proxies for over 5 years and have never experienced any serious trouble using them. People are claiming that since June, datacenter proxies are no longer a viable solution for instagram management. I claim this to be completely false provided you’re using a decent provider. I argue that I’ve experienced less action blocks than a lot of people using mobile proxies; some of whom are experiencing an influx of blocks even today. I don’t have a single action block at the present time, aside from a few like blocks on client accounts who just can’t help themselves - as well as false embedded browser blocks. Here’s a small snippet from my Jarvee account for peace of mind:
Conclusion
I’m not saying that mobile proxies aren’t the best solution for instagram management, nor am I claiming that datacenter proxies are better than mobile proxies - but datacenter proxies are in no way an extinct means of managing accounts in my personal experience.
Myth II: Changing Datacenter Proxies Lowers Account Trust Rating
Technicalities aside, this just isn’t true. If anything, the opposite is true. Should you change proxies every day? No. Should you change proxies every week? Preferably not if you can avoid it. But changing them after a while gives your account a breath of fresh air. Specifically, if you’re experiencing consistent blocks, logouts, or are unable to log back into an account after some time, it’s time to consider changing your proxy.
Conclusion
Don’t change your proxies too often, but definitely change them after long periods of time. They go stale, and your account will perform much better with a new one every now and again, especially if you’re experiencing issues.
Myth III: Changing Device IDs Lowers Trust Score
This one is quite puzzling. If it were true, then mostly every single fairly active Instagrammer would have a low trust score. I’ve personally logged into my Instagram account from multiple locations, both on PC, Mac and various mobile devices, including all of my own devices, my family’s devices, devices in local internet cafes, on the phones and computers of friends, and so the list goes on. This is normal behavior, provided you aren’t doing it too frequently. Also, people get new phones all the time. If Instagram blocked every person logging in on a second device, there would be a serious problem. Once again, should you do it every day? No.
Conclusion
Resetting your device ID if you’re experiencing serious issues can be of significant help. I would recommend changing IPs at the same time in order to have a completely clean slate.
Myth IV: Instagram Shadowbanning Isn’t Real
Let me tell you a story. Automation started for me on Instavast (the good old days), as I’m sure it did for a lot of you as well. I used M/S to grow my personal account, but I was too much of a beginner at the time to understand how to add a proxy to my account. To be honest, I didn’t even know what a proxy was. Oh how things have changed.
I mainly built my following by commenting with the slave accounts, directing people to the main. Pretty straightforward (not to mention it was never easier at the time). At first this worked exceptionally well, but then all of a sudden, when Instavast was no longer the platform it used to be anymore, my growth slowed down drastically. ‘How could this be?’ I thought. Everything was going so well. I was still posting comments, but they were no longer receiving any interaction.
I was still receiving notifications that I was being tagged by my slave accounts, and I could see the comments right there in the comment section of each post. But here’s the thing: As soon as I checked the same posts off a different Instagram account and IP, they weren’t there!
Conclusion
Don’t believe everything you read online. Most people who blog about issues like these have no idea what they’re talking about and just parrot information they’ve read on another blog.
Instagram was showing me my own comments, as well as my main account who was tagged, but it was hiding the comments for the post owner. This explains scenarios such as why sometimes you can click on a post which says ‘2 comments’, but only see 1 comment.
It is also interesting to note, that after about a year of leaving these accounts un-automated, I all of a sudden received an influx of comments likes on comments from 158+ weeks ago, almost as if those old hidden comments were now being shown to people again.
The best part is that I received no warning or notification that any of this was happening. There are probably plenty of similar mechanisms based on trust rating that we don’t even know about, such as Instagram’s method of lowering people’s position in the search based on their account trust rating and history.
Myth V: If Your Posts Don’t Appear in a Hashtag You’re Shadowbanned
This is my favourite one. It has been over a year since Instagram implemented a change to their algorithm which personalizes hashtag results. Even if you have a billion followers on Instagram, your posts will not be shown to everyone. No two Instagrammers are guaranteed to see the same results in a hashtag search. Even the ‘Recent’ tab is personalized and does not show every single post from that tag in chronological order.
Conclusion
If you’re worried about your post’s hashtag reach, check your business insights to see if your post has any reach from hashtags.
Further, use hashtags which are highly relevant to your content so that you actually make an impression on people who see it. The more time people spend looking at your post, and reading your post caption, the more likely you are to trend, and the more likely other people who follow the hashtags you use will be shown your posts.
Just because your post has low hashtag reach doesn’t mean you’re shadowbanned. You could have just picked your hashtags really poorly.
Myth VI: If Your Engagement Has Dropped Consistently Over Time There’s Something Wrong With Your Account
Instagram is continually updating their algorithm so that people are shown content which is truly relevant to them. This can be seriously invasive at times, but for the most part it keeps people on the application longer. It does however make our lives more difficult.
They’re clever in this sense because they can truly say ‘we’re not lowering people’s reach’ and not be lying. This is because their primary goal is to make the user experience more relevant to the individual. It just so happens that the result of these changes means that everyone’s posts are shown to less people, even if they’re more relevant people. This goes hand in hand with personalized hashtag results, as discussed above.
Conclusion
Everyone is experiencing less reach, so you’re not alone. Focus on keeping up to date with the latest industry news, post excellent quality content with engaging captions and highly relevant hashtags to each individual post and you’ll be a cut above the rest.
Parting Advice
If you’re uncertain about a topic to any degree, feel free to share your input and have a discussion with the community, but don’t go around claim-stating facts that you don’t know to be true. Just because something happened in your experience doesn’t make it true. I also encourage those who do know what they are talking about to call people out on any false information. People’s livelihoods are at stake on here and we should all be helping each other grow by providing solid information that is trustworthy.
