Action Blocked Instagram activity is a repeatedly seen popup on Instagram nowadays. It is a part of new guidelines and rules issued by Instagram to keep its platform free from robotic activity and spamming. We will be focusing on understanding the nuances of the Action Blocked Instagram in this article.
Instagram has become a revolutionary social media platform that has transformed lives. It has a similar theme line as Facebook and WhatsApp with the principal theme of bringing people closer to each other. Instagram has become the eye center and most consumed app on the Play Store analytics with the influential audience being the individuals of the age group 18-35 years.
This age group is highly susceptible to SMEs and other enterprises for marketing and advertising strategies to reach the target audience. Instagram has certain features that draw user’s attention through updated features like Reels, Layouts, and Filters. The young crowd generally finds it very fascinating.
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How does Instagram Algorithm Work?
Apart from the vision of connecting and bringing people closer through an online platform, Instagram has become the ultimate personally relevant, creative and entertaining application for the audience between 18-24 years. Before the popularity splurge of Instagram, Facebook used to be at the highest in the ladder in terms of the number of users and active hours spent.
Having the plausible audience in the correct age range, Instagram has developed as one of the most looked upon platforms for business promotions through digital marketing and social media boosting. The vast companies, fashion brands, industry leaders, including Zara, Facebook, Dyson, and millions more have their Instagram accounts. These accounts are created chiefly to post regular updates on upcoming launches, products, and services.
Along with industry leaders and popular brands, Instagram has accounts of millions of small to moderate enterprises, including local businesses, workshops, and new startups. Instagram marketing and advertising have gained massive popularity due to the number of users and their daily usage. The user’s age range on Instagram is coherent with the target audience of almost every business ranging from the automobile industry to fashion, lifestyle, household, education, and research startups.
Followers vs. Following: Points of Consideration
The users on Instagram have a craze for new followers and following, which could potentially help them become popular as individuals, and for companies, it may help them gain more audience for direct marketing. There are various accounts and businesses that try to gain multiple followers in a short time by following and unfollowing a large number of users on Instagram. Sometimes, people do excessive commenting under specific posts to get noticed and increase their account viewership. It gets counted as a violation of Instagram policies.
Such actions of gaining followers through Spam content, reposting the same media multiple times from different accounts, excessive commenting, and various other ways are strictly prohibited under Instagram’s guidelines.
Under the Instagram policies, it is mandatory to follow the rules and guidelines issued for marketing purposes. A separate set of guidelines are made for sponsored posts to the target audience and marketing for your account.
Instagram Revenue Policies and Action blocked Instagram:
Instagram earns ad revenues and profits by marketing and sponsoring posts and accounts of various celebrities, famous stars, or different scale companies. If the methods like posting Spam content, commenting more than the fixed limit, and excessive following and unfollowing routine violate the algorithm of Instagram Sponsorship.
Hence to prevent such circumstances, Instagram has an option of Action Blocked. This action-blocked Instagram error message appears on the screen of the Landing page of Instagram, which mentions that your account has been blocked from performing specific actions on the platform, including sharing, liking, commenting, or following any other accounts or users.
What is Action Blocked on Instagram
This Action blocked activity restricts you from performing any other function except scrolling your feed. The Instagram algorithm has been made in a way through which it can notice the spamming activity easily and block those users intentionally. This block or ban from the platform may be temporary or permanent, depending on the number of warnings already received.
The algorithm does not block your account permanently in one go, but even after sending multiple temporary Action blocked warnings, the account will be banned for an infinite time period.
It is always advised that you should look upon the various rules, settings, and guidelines created on the platform, impacting your usage, to have a better understanding of your do’s and don’ts. You must be wondering, “why is my action blocked on Instagram.” Following are the reasons which may have caused it.
What Causes Instagram Blocked Action?
- Your account is reported by Multiple Users
With the course of your active hours on Instagram; if the algorithm finds your account to be reported multiple times by other users, you may receive an Action Block on Instagram, more or less a Temporary one if this activity is observed for the first time.
It is important not to post inappropriate Content on Instagram to avoid other users blocking and reporting your page.
If similar reports are done against your account, even after the repeated Action Blocks, it may as well lead to suspension or Permanent Action Block of your account.
- Frequent logging activities from different IP addresses and computer device
You may use multiple devices for logging in to your account; this practice also may lead the algorithm to presume some suspicious activity in your account. It is recommended to use your account from the source you use the most to avoid multiple logged-in actions.
If it is required to use some other device, make sure you confirm your account through your Email or SMS verification.
- Seemingly Robotic Activity noticed in your account
There are multiple accounts on the platform which at least seem to be controlled by the bots. The bots are used to automate the account and to give quick responses to customers.
This is also one of the practices under Social media marketing. You can automate your page responses to some extent, but repetition of the same post, media, replies, or hashtags will make your account suspicious in terms of robotic presence.
- Excessive Direct Messaging to multiple users or same users multiple times
Many business Instagram accounts message multiple users, through the direct messaging feature of the platform. When the amount exceeds the standard limit of DMs per day, your account may receive a warning.
If multiple such warnings are received, it will lead to an Action blocked activity on your account through a popup message from Instagram – This Action was blocked.
There is no definite limit of DMs which can be sent in a day, but 100 DMs per day is an appreciable limit to be achieved. You must take a break of 24 hours before sending any more messages. Or else some robotic activity might be presumed by the Instagram algorithm.
- Spamming the Comment section of other users accounts
If you are commenting on other user’s accounts multiple times, almost more than 100 comments on one page will eventually cause an Action Block of your account. Commenting on someone else’s post is perfectly fine, but excessive or abusive remarks are reported, leading to permanent suspension of your page.
- Usage of Copyrighted Content on your page without due credits
Many Content creating firms and big platforms generally post the Content created by smaller or medium businesses or users without giving them proper credit for using their content. This is upfront plagiarism or copyright infringement.
Such practices are not appreciated by the Instagram algorithm and will definitely need either a temporary action block or a permanent action block on your account. It is advised to refrain from copyright infringement. If you use the Content created by any other account, make sure to mention them in the captions to tag them to give them their due credit.
- Posting Inappropriate Media on the Page
When the Content posted on your account is particularly inappropriate to the target audience, the users may report your account. Any sexual content, assault or inappropriate information which may be misleading will be reported or directly removed by Instagram.
Such media should not be posted, and if some sensitive content is posted, make sure to put a disclaimer first. Such disclaimers will provide a warning to the viewers, and they will be able to use their discretion if they want to or refuse to see the post.
- Usage of multiple hashtags in the caption rather than Normal Text
Hashtags are an effective way of reaching out to more audiences on Instagram. If vigilantly used, Hashtags provide immense popularity and increase the hits of your post through sharing and reposting.
The usage of hashtags should be carefully done. It is important not to put only hashtags in a post. It would be best if you put words or normal text in the upper caption, along with some relevant hashtags below it.
This will provide you a more significant chance of being viewed and not get an Action Blocked Instagram popup. Putting the hashtags on the caption, and not using text may lead to an Action Block Activity.
- Multiple posts per day
There should be a limit to how much you post on Instagram. It is essential to be active and regular on the account, to interact with your customers or display your new collections or services. But restricting to a limit will help you to increase the screen time of your audience on the previous posts.
In addition to this, multiple posts per day will lead to a suspicion of robotic activity in your account.
This will cause an Action Block Activity against your account. The limit for posts is 100 posts per day. Make sure not to exceed that limit.
- Usage or amount of hours spent on Instagram
The algorithm of Instagram can track how many hours you spend on the platform. Business accounts have a feature of limiting or putting a limit to the number of hours you spend on Instagram.
If the algorithm tracks you using Instagram for exceptionally long hours, it may grow suspicious of your usage and bots controlling your page. It may lead to the activity of Temporary action block on your account.
After listing the various reasons why the condition of Action Blocked Instagram on your page or account would appear, it is relevant to understand the changes you could make in your activity on the platform, which will prevent the unnecessary action blocks and cause you lesser inconvenience. The Multiple Action Blocks received by the account will lead to a decrease in account engagement; spoil the reputation of your brand, and lead to continued tracking of your account by the Instagram algorithm.
As much as the algorithm is precise to locate any spamming activity, it is also quite possible that specific actions performed by some users may mimic the spamming activity, which might not be the actual intention of the user. Such action blocks are a real pain as they target a user who has seemingly not violated the guidelines for any exploitation purposes.
There are multiple ways to solve the above-mentioned problems and hence prevent any Action Blocked Instagram activities on your account. Below is a list of a few of them which may help you to create a checklist of do’s and don’ts while using Instagram, be ut for recreation purposes or genuine marketing practices.
How to prevent the Action Block Activity?
- Preventing the usage of Instagram for a minimum of 48 hours
Once you receive an Action Block, your account activity gets suspended for a particular time. The algorithm does not allow you to perform certain actions like commenting, liking, following, posting, etc., on the social media platform.
It is essential to reboot the system by not using Instagram for at least 48 hours to prevent further suspicion on your account.
Usually, after the temporary action block is removed, do not exceed the permitted number of actions per day. If you receive repeated Temporary Action Blocks, then the algorithm may as well block you permanently.
Such permanent action blocks take around a month for retrieval.
- Report the Instagram activities to their own algorithm
If you think that your account has not performed any such actions to be blocked or if you have not violated any terms and conditions of the platform, you can report the activity of Action blocked to Instagram again.
Reporting Instagram activity on your account and providing a feasible description of your problem will send a message to the algorithm of its actions. It is vital to inform the platform about the false actions which are taken against your account or at least get the justification of the reasons for getting Action blocked.
These steps are essential to ensure that your account has not been hacked by some other person or company to market its own products and services or any inappropriate content.
- Uninstalling and Reinstalling the application
If your account has been getting multiple temporary Action blocked activities by Instagram, it is essential to uninstall the application from your device. This step will help you to reboot your account and access it after a while to stop the suspicion which has been leading to temporary action blocks to your account.
After uninstalling the app, you can reinstall it after some time. Make sure to do the verification through email and SMS to ensure utmost safety and security to your account.
You should make sure to obey the guidelines carefully and not exceed any fixed limits of the algorithm.
- Changing Passwords
There are high possibilities that your account may be hacked and has been used for spreading inappropriate information, false spread, excessive commenting, and other practices. Hence, if you find that your account has been getting multiple Action blocked warnings, and you don’t seem to understand the cause, make sure to change the password at the earliest.
This will allow you to ensure safety and minimize the chances of getting hacked.
If the warnings still pertain, you need to report the Action blocked activities to Instagram with an apt description of your misery.
It is preferable to use only one account for accessing your social media through one device usually.
If multiple devices are being used, you have to verify the information correctly every time.
- Do not excessively post comments
The primary purpose of social media is to market the products and services effectively and reach out to the people. Liking, sharing, and commenting is an essential part of this routine.
But the touch on likes, comments, and every activity gets recorded and can be done only to a certain extent.
The Instagram algorithm allows only 100 comments per day; hence you should not exceed that limit very often. It is possible to interact through other platforms, but make sure to follow the necessary guidelines of every social media platform. The only way of avoiding any action blocks is to keep a check on your usage and hence never exceed it.
- Limited account following/unfollowing activity
As mentioned, following, sharing, reposting, etc. all are actions of reaching out effectively and communicating through genuine Content. But these responses can be exploited by multiple users to increase their following and become famous. For this, such users follow every other account in return, expecting them to follow back, and hence increasing their following.
Such methods are not appreciated by the Instagram algorithm. Hence, there is a fixed number of users you can follow in one day. Exceeding this activity will lead to immediate temporary Action blocked activity.
- No spamming of Content
This is one of the significant reasons for accounts getting Action blocked. Whenever the algorithm sees one particular information that may be posted and used at multiple sites within a certain time limit without due credits and mentions, the algorithm blocks it and removes it from the server.
The propagation of the same information may be misleading and inappropriate and can potentially cause the users to believe the wrong facts.
An important aspect to note here is if the false information also is propagated at various websites or pages and if, as a user, you see the same Content everywhere, there are higher chances of you believing in that information because it is present on various sites.
This is called spamming, and it is strictly prohibited by the Instagram algorithm and can lead to temporary action block activity immediately.
- Prevent Copyright Infringement
Reposting and reusing Content created by some other user or page is a healthy practice on Instagram. But only when proper credits are given to the creator through tagging, mentioning, and reposting through their account.
If a page or user is posting Content that is created by someone else under his or her name, it is counted under copyright infringement.
It is recommended to all the users to refrain from such activities as it might lead to your account suspension as well through repeated reporting.
Pretending to be someone else like celebrities and sports stars and concealing your original identity may also lead to temporary account suspensions.
This copyright infringement is one of the most easily visible violations on the Instagram platform. Many content forms very easily use the information of Content created by some small creators to enhance their following and get an impressive number of clicks.
Such acts are highly condemned and prohibited.
- Deletion of a majority of Hashtags from your posts
Once your account has been temporarily Action blocked, you can remove almost all the hashtags from your current posts, say in a month. Removing hashtags will decrease the access of your posts to a larger audience and hence lessen the number of people who will be able to report it if any inappropriate content has been used. It will prevent Action Blocked Instagram activity.
- Linking the parent platform Facebook to Instagram
A very effective way of providing credibility to your account on both platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, is to link the two media together. As we all are aware that, Facebook is the parent company of Instagram and WhatsApp. Hence it is beneficial to connect the two accounts of Facebook in Instagram to provide added reputability to your business, and it also makes it easier to post on both platforms simultaneously.
The creator studio in Facebook allows you to schedule posts and publish them at a later time, which is considered under automation of your account. This is a healthy practice and enables you to post the same content on Facebook in Instagram both at the same time hence decreasing your time and efforts to market your product and services.
- Logging Out of All Other Devices :
It is a device to log out from all other devices and use only one credible device with proper verification via email or SMS. This will increase the credibility of your account.
Healthy Marketing Practices on Instagram
Every business or upcoming startup requires some marketing and promotions to reach out to the masses and promote their services and products. Following healthy marketing practices is essential to organically grow and develop your business without indulging in any ill practices.
For marketing and sponsorship on social media, collaboration is an effective way through which any similar business like yours can collaborate with you to market the goods and services collectively. This will provide the audience with variety to choose from and credibility of two companies.
Keeping the social media accounts bots free, restricting automated messages, interacting with customers, posting appropriate Content with a personal touch are some techniques to enhance your following and keep them interested in the developments of your business.
All these healthy social media marketing practices will keep the account safe, free from any Action blocked activities or suspensions.
Reach your Potential Audience organically
Organic marketing practices or marketing through word of mouth is the most efficient way of enhancing your following through new genuine customers based on their experiences with your company. Word of mouth marketing is a result of your excellent services provided by your business model to the consumer.
Action block activities on your account of Instagram or Facebook can broadly impact your following. It has the potential to decrease the credibility of your business and make you look like a spam company. Hence it is crucial to follow the rules and guidelines of the platform you are working at and utilize their policies to the full potential to benefit your company.
For how much time can my account be Action Blocked?
Based on the Instagram algorithm of reporting and blocking users, it can be understood that the platform action blocks the accounts which seem to exceed the maximum limit of actions that can be performed in a day.
Search users who relate the terms and actions which can be performed like commenting, following and following messaging, and many more. But these action blocks are usually temporary. Action blocks can be of two types – Temporary and Permanent blocks.
Most of the action blocks issued by Instagram are temporary and allow the user to reuse the account after 24 hours. After 24 hours, all the restricted functions turn normal to use. This is how temporary action blocks work.
If the situation is difficult, so much so that the account has received multiple warnings and disclaimers, still the concerned activities do not stop. In such cases, the algorithm can block the accounts permanently or issue a Permanent Action Block.
Such Action Blocks take almost a month to be fully retrieved. And with such actions, the following of your account undoubtedly will get excessively affected.
You should make sure to adapt to healthy social media marketing practices in order to avoid any Action Blocks or warnings in the future.
Conclusion
Effective usage of the Instagram algorithm will help your business or achieve heights in no time. With the utilization of marketing techniques by Instagram, the plans of sponsorship, collaborations, paid posts are all becoming efficient per day.
Activities that raise suspicion against your account or signify any bot activity, misuse of automation features will not be approved by the algorithm for maintaining healthy marketing practices leading to Action Blocked activity.
Temporary or Permanent Action blocked activities will lead to loss of credibility, decrease in the number of followers, and most importantly, it will increase suspicion about your account.
Hence, it is recommended to perform the actions on any social media platform like Instagram as per issued guidelines and rules. We hope this article gave you an insight into the causes of Action Blocked activity and ways through which you can prevent them, leading to safer and secure practices.
