Instagram Suspended Me

Instagram Suspended Me // Working through my wrongful business account suspension

In early July, I was doing my usual round of catching up on some recent DMs in the Instagram app. While sending a message to another photographer, my app locked, told me I was suspended for violating Instagram’s community rules, and kicked me off. The message said it should be resolved in a day, but it’s been a week, and I am still waiting on my appeal to be reviewed. In case you were wondering, there is absolutely zero reason I should be suspended! I have never misused the app in any way, and I’ve been using it for my business for close to a decade (I can’t remember when I officially started my business account, but it was early on as a photographer). I have no way of checking the status of my appeal, emailing support, etc. And even worse, if my appeal is rejected, I can’t appeal again – I simply lose my entire account forever.

For someone who doesn’t really enjoy Instagram, it’s been a surprisingly stressful week of suspension. I’ve worked to build my account for many years, and have friends and family and acquaintances I’m connected to on there. And of course, sharing my services is a big deal, quite literally how I provide for my family! I have an audience outside of IG, but IG is my primary space to market what I do, and being suspended has a direct impact on my ability to pay my bills and earn a living.

Naturally, I figured this whole ordeal would make some important content – because I am likely not the only person around here who will experience this, and because losing an account can be devastating. I shared all of this recently in a newsletter, and got many replies from others who have experienced this and have lost all of their work, never to get it back. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s more common to lose everything than to get an account back.

I’ll be clear: I have no solution for this, but I do have information and thoughts to share. And I think it’s really important for everyone to understand that our Instagram accounts can be taken from us at any moment, with no cause and no notice and no solution. It sucks, but it’s true – and it should change our entire approach to how we build our business. Here’s what I know right now, and you can expect more information as time goes on!

Instagram Suspended Me // Working through my wrongful business account suspension

Why this happened, and how to prevent it:
I have zero idea why this happened. There is nothing I have done or posted or shared, etc. that is remotely problematic. My only guess is that Instagram is using AI to look for bad accounts, and that something mistakenly triggered a warning. I have spoken with others who have experienced this, and some have gotten their accounts back, but more have not. In all cases, no one knows why it happened and no one was misusing Instagram.

I also wanted to add for clarity that I was not hacked. No one accessed my account and used it maliciously.

Unfortunately, that means there is no way to prevent this. It’s not something I caused, and it’s not something I even knew could happen. But it is disturbing to be confronted with the fact that our social media accounts can be removed at any time with no good reason and no recourse.

What the process is like:
When I was alerted to my suspension, I was able to request an appeal. There is no number to call, no one to email, no way that I can contact Instagram. I have heard horror stories from people whose accounts were hacked, and that they could never contact Instagram to get anything recovered. Of course that was awful, but I at least felt I could protect myself: I use a strong password and update it regularly, I monitor any new logins, and I’ve been paying for Meta Verified for quite a while so that I had extra security on my account.

I was suspended Saturday morning, and am writing this on Friday afternoon. Nothing has changed, and there is no next step I can take. My Verified status hasn’t helped me in any way since being suspended, because you lose all access to Verified support when you’re locked out of your account. This is a known issue that others have complained about, and it means that I can’t imagine ever paying for this ‘support’ ever again. It’s been a total waste of money.

If I get my account back, I assume everything will be reinstated as it was left. But if my appeal is rejected, I will simply lose everything – my posts, my lists of followers, all of the stories I’ve posted of my kids over the years, my messages, etc. And there will be no way to appeal again. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a very stressful week as I process through all of the ways this will impact my business and my income.

Going forward:
There’s a chance that I’ll have my account back soon, and have no long-term issues. I am of course very much hoping for this outcome, but based on the stories I’ve heard, I know that it is not very likely even though I didn’t violate any rules and there isn’t actually a real problem.

If I do have to start over, I’ll take the hit as best as I can. To be transparent, I absolutely hate this idea. I had built up a very respectable and engaged audience over many years, and it’s not easy to replace that when I can’t communicate with that audience. I also am very bothered at the idea of spending more time rebuilding on a platform that screwed me over after taking my advertising and verification money.

The truth is, Instagram does not care about us whatsoever. As a photographer friend pointed out, Meta is worth over a trillion dollars, but doesn’t care to offer any actual support to users. This should bother us deeply, and I even wonder if there will be a lawsuit at some point when they damage enough businesses. But I’m just one tiny business in a trillion dollar sea – there’s not much I can do, no matter how unfair it is.

So will I create another account if I lose mine permanently? I don’t yet know. It’s hard to imagine that I won’t at all, because I don’t want to miss out on the connections I’ve made through IG. But I also can’t imagine ever trusting it again, and I don’t want to waste time that I really don’t have anyway. We’ll see.

If you read nothing else, read this, because it’s the truth that this experience is driving home:

It’s absolutely essential to build an email list and work on your SEO.

A business without an audience is not much of a business, is it? And if we’re only really relying on one audience set, our foundation may not be strong enough to weather a storm.

We’ve all been told at one point or another that our social media audience is not our own – it’s less ‘ours’ than any other platform, really. I’ve known this for years, and thankfully I have invested real time and energy into building a solid email list and ranking well for relevant Google searches. In fact, a majority of my photography inquiries come from Google searches.

Of course, none of that means that this doesn’t hurt – it does, and it hurts a LOT! If I lose my account, it will affect my business in a very real way, and it will be upsetting and challenging and involve some tears – but it won’t ruin me. Even if I lose my social media audience (my biggest segment), I have built a foundation that means I won’t be starting truly from scratch.

I’ll be sharing more on this topic soon, including some super simple SEO tips and ways you can build an email list as a photographer. There is no perfect solution, and no way to prevent all possible issues with the platforms we use to connect with our audience. But thankfully, there is a straightforward way to build a solid foundation for your business that will carry you through any storms that come your way.

My goal is always to turn my challenges into your gain, and make the sailing a little smoother for everyone else when possible. I hope that this stressful experience I’m still working through can be a reminder to you that social media is just one part of running a healthy business. It doesn’t define you, your numbers are fairly unimportant, and you and your business will both be healthier when you can put your time and energy into other avenues as well!

Thanks for reading! I know I’ve left some of you hanging on IG, so please don’t hesitate to reach out here!

Instagram Suspended Me // Working through my wrongful business account suspension