The Diary of a Digital Marketing Apprentice: What is an Action Ban & How Do You Avoid Them?

Hi! My name is Ed and I am Destination Digital’s most recent hire. Today I will be walking you through everything you need to know about action bans, what they are, how they can affect your account and much more!

Since joining Destination Digital as a Digital Marketing Apprentice, I’ve been writing blogs as part of developing my content creation skills. I already have a number of blogs under my belt, which you might be interested in reading!

• The hidden world behind everything that happens online
• TikTok reposts vs Instagram notes
• Should you niche down on Instagram and if yes; how?
• Three of the biggest social media trends and features in 2024?

In this blog, I will be sharing everything you need to know about action bans on Instagram and Facebook, including what causes them and how you can avoid them.

What is an Action Ban?

An action ban or block is a common issue faced by users on Facebook and Instagram. It can affect anyone and is caused by (clue is in the name) – too many actions, such as likes, comments, follows, etc.

The number of actions that can be carried out on your account varies in many different ways. These can include the age of your account, the number of times you have previously been action banned and your number of followers.

How to Avoid it?                             

No one knows better than me about action bans and how frustrating they are. Not only are they annoying, they also can ruin people’s accounts. Most people who make content on Instagram will know that one of the most important steps in creating viral content is consistency of posting. So, once you have lost momentum and consistency, it will usually take a long time to get back. I have seen examples of people getting action banned and their accounts never fully bouncing back from it.

In more serious cases of action bans, you can get banned from posting or doing any actions for a whole week. Once you get into this mess with the algorithm, it is very difficult to get out of. So, without further ado, let’s get into how to avoid this!

Number 1:

The easiest way to avoid a ban is to reduce your actions, and be mindful at all times.

For a brand-new account, I would recommend limiting actions to under 500 total actions per day (ideally leaving a sustained break between large amounts of actions in a short period). But for an older, well-trusted by the algorithm account, you can probably get away with around 800 actions. However, I still wouldn’t recommend as it is quite simply not worth the risk. The reason most action bans happen is because the algorithm believes that you are a fake/spammy account.

Number 2:

Avoid using the follow-unfollow method. Despite this being a widely known and well-used growth tactic on Instagram, it can cause an inactive following, as well as inevitably get you action banned.

Number 3:

Do not use third party automated tools offer you likes and followers in return for your Instagram login details.  Not only are these apps/tools against Instagram’s terms and conditions, as you’re providing them with unauthorised access to data, but they are also a problem when it comes to action bans as they can gain access to your account and post spam, like spam and even see personal DMs.

If you haven’t successfully avoided an action ban, I am sorry to tell you that there is not much you can do. Some people speculate that you are able to get unbanned in a number of different ways. Some of these include deleting then re-installing the app, reporting the problem and linking your Instagram and Facebook accounts.

I hope you found this blog informative and if you’ve found yourself stuck in this situation, I hope it helped you out!

Contact us

If you’d like to talk to us about this news or about anything in the digital marketing sphere, then please email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199.