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Business Battle: Rivals knocked me off of Instagram

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

MoreVolume

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Lets start from the beginning. I started up my supplement business 2 years ago. Im in a specific niche, and my product is effective, so I saw success from the get go. I recouped my startup costs after a month a few days.

What brought attention to my product was creative marketing by way of Instagram and adult streaming sites. I had the idea to get adult film stars to endorse my product, as they would be the best influence for this type of niche. Keep in mind, that out of all my competitors, I was the only one using real people for advertising.

I started a campaign, using the word "Approved", which was a HUGE hit on Instagram. I basically used free content, blended it with music, and uploaded. The page gained a generic 4,000 followers in less than a year, and a majority of purchase referrals came from this page. I'd get tons of DMs of people telling me that they realized what I was doing with my advertising, and that it was a fresh idea.

But here's when things took a turn......

On IG I would use hashtags of rival/competitor products to bring attention to my page. Apparently, this got the attention of one of them. After a few months, I checked their page out, and they were featuring endorsements from adult film stars.
I know it wasn't a coincidence, but I couldn't get mad. They were confirming that my mind was in the right place.

But the the next thing you know, my IG posts start getting shadowbanned. Before, I would get post views in the THOUSANDS almost every time I made a post. But now I was only getting 100-200.
At that point I wasn't sure if I was being targeted.

But I had another page, that was nothing but straightforward advertising. Customer quotes, bottle images, product related cartoons. Out of nowhere, it gets deleted by Instagram. There was NOTHING on that page that broke any type of rules, and there was no explanation of how I violated any terms.

THEN I notice that the famous "approved" hashtag gets shadowbanned on IG. If you click it, none of the 400+ posts that I made are viewable. Its basically impossible for new people to find that page.

I know for a fact that the rival company made moves against me. Their website all but confirms it, as they are using the whole "approved" idea.
I have to be honest and say that they struck a blow.

Ive actually managed to keep growing despite this setback, but I can only imagine how well things would be if I could get this Instagram lane back.

The question now is, how do I do it? How do I fight back?
Its basically impossible to contact IG. I don't know if I can recreate the magic run I had on IG with the "approved" idea. Is there any way to hit back at my rivals? Should I even try?
 
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Empires

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Why do they have to be rivals? Is there any way you can work together rather than against each other?

Make it beneficial for both of you, then you'll both have no reason to be rivals.
 

MoreVolume

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Why do they have to be rivals? Is there any way you can work together rather than against each other?

Make it beneficial for both of you, then you'll both have no reason to be rivals.
Nope. We are all competing for the same pool of people. The products are consumable, so if you land a customer, you're getting money from him more than once.
They're the enemy. Thats just the way it has to be. I don't say that to sound difficult.

You don't. Every hour you spend stewing on this is an hour of wasted time.

It sucks, but you gotta move on.
I hear you. In my mind, I was thinking that I could get back at them, in a way that steals their customers. But thats probably not possible, without taking extreme measures.
 
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amp0193

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I hear you. In my mind, I was thinking that I could get back at them, in a way that steals their customers. But thats probably not possible, without taking extreme measures.

I've been there man.

Revenge isn't going to solve your problems.

Learn from your mistakes, and move forward.
 

Joey El

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...They're the enemy. Thats just the way it has to be. I don't say that to sound difficult.


I hear you. In my mind, I was thinking that I could get back at them, in a way that steals their customers. But thats probably not possible, without taking extreme measures.

Karma might come for me but I’m only pointing out...
GOLD! - Paid Advertising Crash Course
 

Kid

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Ever heard about Frank Kern?

In short, if you have 10 enemies (competitors), make a trust with 3-4 of them.
Cross promote, shoutout each other or whatever you do on instagram.

This way you'll be one of 3 players that dominate the niche.

All other would have to fight alone.

Ofcourse, you would have to split customers 1/3 but its better then splitting them 1/10.
 
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MattR82

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How do you knnnow that they got you banned or deleted from Instagram? You were doing something with adult stars so sounds like you were at risk even without them doing anything. IG has been on a huge blitz lately to "clean up" so much so that even people selling bikinis are being affected.
 

MoreVolume

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How do you knnnow that they got you banned or deleted from Instagram? You were doing something with adult stars so sounds like you were at risk even without them doing anything. IG has been on a huge blitz lately to "clean up" so much so that even people selling bikinis are being affected.
The timing of everything. My IG was targeted about a year ago, way before the IG sweep. Not to mention my other page was about as PG as it gets, and was actually health/science orientated.
 

Xeon

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Lets start from the beginning. I started up my supplement business 2 years ago. Im in a specific niche, and my product is effective, so I saw success from the get go. I recouped my startup costs after a month a few days.

What brought attention to my product was creative marketing by way of Instagram and adult streaming sites. I had the idea to get adult film stars to endorse my product, as they would be the best influence for this type of niche. Keep in mind, that out of all my competitors, I was the only one using real people for advertising.

I started a campaign, using the word "Approved", which was a HUGE hit on Instagram. I basically used free content, blended it with music, and uploaded. The page gained a generic 4,000 followers in less than a year, and a majority of purchase referrals came from this page. I'd get tons of DMs of people telling me that they realized what I was doing with my advertising, and that it was a fresh idea.

But here's when things took a turn......

On IG I would use hashtags of rival/competitor products to bring attention to my page. Apparently, this got the attention of one of them. After a few months, I checked their page out, and they were featuring endorsements from adult film stars.
I know it wasn't a coincidence, but I couldn't get mad. They were confirming that my mind was in the right place.

But the the next thing you know, my IG posts start getting shadowbanned. Before, I would get post views in the THOUSANDS almost every time I made a post. But now I was only getting 100-200.
At that point I wasn't sure if I was being targeted.

But I had another page, that was nothing but straightforward advertising. Customer quotes, bottle images, product related cartoons. Out of nowhere, it gets deleted by Instagram. There was NOTHING on that page that broke any type of rules, and there was no explanation of how I violated any terms.

THEN I notice that the famous "approved" hashtag gets shadowbanned on IG. If you click it, none of the 400+ posts that I made are viewable. Its basically impossible for new people to find that page.

I know for a fact that the rival company made moves against me. Their website all but confirms it, as they are using the whole "approved" idea.
I have to be honest and say that they struck a blow.

Ive actually managed to keep growing despite this setback, but I can only imagine how well things would be if I could get this Instagram lane back.

The question now is, how do I do it? How do I fight back?
Its basically impossible to contact IG. I don't know if I can recreate the magic run I had on IG with the "approved" idea. Is there any way to hit back at my rivals? Should I even try?

Regarding shadowbanning, could it be because you keep using the same hashtags in every post? IG tends to think people are spamming the hashtags when it's the same set it hashtags every single post.

What people do is to make a set of 30, and split them into groups of 6-8, and alternate between each set each post.

The way I've read about getting out of shadowbanning is to stop posting for 14 days (most common solution and it often works), and/or do a paid promotion because logically speaking, if you're paying IG, they can't ban your reach.

The other option, which is a very vicious one,.....is to bot the shit out of your competitors' Instagram account if you know who they're, then keep reporting them. Several ways to do this, but it's the last resort.

It's like what happened previously to some companies online, where rivals would buy and send hundreds of fake negative reviews daily and send them to the vicitim's FB page etc.

This is also why it's not a good idea to make IG your main sales channel, because while it's good, it's extremely FRAGILE. Control control control.
 
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Chapas

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My wife's account got shadowbaned as well. I think the way she got around it was to completely log out of her profile for a whole week. Before that she deleted every single hash tag on every post. Now she is not shadowbaned anymore.

I can ask her to confirm that information later. At least this is how I remember it.
 

GoodluckChuck

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If you did it once you can do it again.

Think outside the box and outside Instagram.

When you do Instagram again don't Target your competitors or at least not without making a deal with them first.
 

MoreVolume

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Regarding shadowbanning, could it be because you keep using the same hashtags in every post? IG tends to think people are spamming the hashtags when it's the same set it hashtags every single post.

What people do is to make a set of 30, and split them into groups of 6-8, and alternate between each set each post.

The way I've read about getting out of shadowbanning is to stop posting for 14 days (most common solution and it often works), and/or do a paid promotion because logically speaking, if you're paying IG, they can't ban your reach.

The other option, which is a very vicious one,.....is to bot the shit out of your competitors' Instagram account if you know who they're, then keep reporting them. Several ways to do this, but it's the last resort.

It's like what happened previously to some companies online, where rivals would buy and send hundreds of fake negative reviews daily and send them to the vicitim's FB page etc.

This is also why it's not a good idea to make IG your main sales channel, because while it's good, it's extremely FRAGILE. Control control control.
I made sure to never use the same sequence of hashtags, because there were so many to choose from for my niche. But, every post had 1 hashtag that was the same because it was the theme of the page.

Ive thought about the bot attack as well lol. But as someone said earlier, it would be a waste of time...and trust me, I would LOVE to strike a blow back at those uncreative MFs.

My wife's account got shadowbaned as well. I think the way she got around it was to completely log out of her profile for a whole week. Before that she deleted every single hash tag on every post. Now she is not shadowbaned anymore.

I can ask her to confirm that information later. At least this is how I remember it.
Ive tried logging out for months at a time and it never worked. Like 2 months straight. But I will try that removing hashtags posts. I have nothing to lose at this point.

If you did it once you can do it again.

Think outside the box and outside Instagram.

When you do Instagram again don't Target your competitors or at least not without making a deal with them first.
You're right, and ive been thinking hard these past few days. Im going to give it another try with a new IG page. Im going to move smarter, in order to avoid my competitors. The formula I was using was just too profitable to give up.
 
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