How getting up at 5.55am can probably ruin your Instagram Account

3051 views since July 21, 2017

I never thought that my habit of getting up at 5.55am can probably ruin my whole Instagram account.

I prepare my posts always the day before, I create a draft and store all my captions in my Notes app. So everything is already prepared and when my alarm clock rings at 5.55am the first thing I do is bringing my post online. You might think This girl is crazy and that's ok, everyone has it's own habits and priorities. But with some tests I recognized that my posts perform best when I post them early in the morning.

I started my Instagram journey last summer with a challenge and after a few days I set myself a goal: 365 DAYS with 365 times of GREAT CONTENT. I'm so close to this goal, but at the end of last week something strange happened. My posts did not perform anymore, they did not show up at ANY of my used hashtags, not even the ones I created for my brand and business name. I'm totally aware of the so called Shadow Banned problem and I know when you use one of those banned hashtags the whole post will not show up at any used hashtag, but I try to take care of that and I could not find problematically hashtags within my posts. The only ones seeing your banned posts are people who follow your account or people visiting your account on purpose. I read lots of articles, got angry and sad. My presumption is that Instagram thinks I'm a BOT, because my posts always go online at the same time on weekdays. I still do not have any confirmation yet, but that is the only thing I can imagine or that someone maybe reported my account for no understandably reason.

I tried to contact the Instagram Help Center last weekend and I did not receive any response, BUT: at the beginning of this week it seemed that my last post at this point of time got repaired. Before that it did not show up at any used hashtag but curiously enough a few days later this problem was repaired, at least regarding my last post at this point of time. That gave me hope.

Let's be honest, we don't just post photos and write captions because it's so much fun and we don't have anything else to do: NO. It's social media and the social engagement is what you are looking for. It's always fun and encouraging when you receive feedback and some positive vibes!

I never ever used a bot. I just create tasks and schedule as much as possible, so things get done with a system, that's how I roll. Seems that this habit ruined my Instagram account and that I'm punished for being organised and goal-oriented. But when we use such a free tool, we have to play by the rules and so I do my best to vary the time I bring my posts online every morning. Within the last days it seemed that everything came back to normal by doing this AND I'm pretty sure that contacting the Instagram Help Center was the right choice - otherwise one of my posts would not have changed afterwards and from that point of time on my Instagram performance came back.

Anyway: I WILL NOT GIVE UP, I chose to pursue a target: 365 days with 365 posts. No matter if anyone sees my posts or not. Of course it would be sad if this problem would occur again and in such a case I have to think how to use my Instagram account after this period. But for now I will try to think positive and hope that everything will turn to good account and stay as it is right now. Lesson learned!