Ghost Banning: The Spooky Side of Social Media
You’ve just created a new social media account.
You put up your content, copy, and filled both with hashtags. But it’s eerily quiet.
No followers. No likes. No engagement.
Spooky.
After logging into a separate account, you tried searching for the account with issues.... and it wasn’t there.
It wasn’t listed as a follower. Its posts didn’t show up when you searched for the latest posts by hashtag. And it most certainly didn’t appear in the search results.
You’ve been ghost banned.
For those who don’t know, ghost banning is when you are unofficially banned on a social media platform. You’ll still have access to all of the functions of your account and you may not even realize that you’ve been ghost banned.
Essentially, social media platforms ghost ban users as a defense against spammers. With all of the recent news about social media predators, who could blame them?
But the reality of the situation is that it all too often affects those who are simply eager to join social media. People want to follow all of the relevant industry contacts. They want to establish themselves as a thought leader with a reoccurring Tweet. Perhaps, they fail to update all of their profile information immediately.
And before they know it, they’ve been locked away from the rest of the users on the platform without even realizing it.
However, ghost ban victims still receive interaction after the unofficial ban. Only it isn’t from the type of crowd you’d like to gather attention from. Instead, you’ll find spam accounts following you without any sort of genuine interest in the product/service that you have to offer.
This leads to the second downside of a ghost ban: You’re locked away from legitimate users, but completely open to all of the actual spam accounts. Ultimately, this renders participation in the platform completely pointless.
So what can you do if you find yourself ghost banned?
Whether you’re brand new to the social media platform or you’ve been around the block a time or two, you inevitably have two options:
Delete the account and start over.
Take it easy with the content posting/following.
Those with new accounts should find it easy to delete the original and start fresh.
However, those who have an established follower base and months of content will have to travel down a more difficult path. First off, you have to be patient. The path to exorcising the ghost ban will take serious time and dedication.
Now that we’ve established that, here are a few rudimentary tips to redeem your account.
Share genuine thoughts and treat these platforms like the microblogging channels they were meant to be.
Don’t cram 800 hashtags in a single post because accounts are more likely to chalk it up as spam. Quality over quantity.
Include your logo in a post once a day instead of in every piece of content that you churn out.
Be more selective about who you follow.
Avoid “free” follower accounts.
Ramp up slowly instead of advertising day one.
In time, the moderators of these platforms will see that you are, in fact, an actual user who wants to provide and gain value from the platform. And when all is said and done, isn’t that the point?
For questions on ghost banning, send us a message or fill out the form at RizzoYoungMarketing.com.