Rant: Dropped $250 on a "social media manager" who got me shadowbanned

I hired someone off Upwork to handle my Instagram for my little vintage shop. She charged $250 a month and seemed legit at first. After two weeks I noticed my reach dropped to basically zero. Turns out she was using some bot service to auto-like and comment on random posts. Instagram flagged my account and now I'm stuck in the shadowban zone for who knows how long. I tried appealing it but got nowhere. Total waste of money and now I have to rebuild my audience from scratch. Has anyone else had a hired social person wreck their account like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray3561mo ago

Is a shadowban really that permanent or is this just a temporary drop in engagement?

murphy.aaron1mo ago

Yeah, that happened to me a while back... still not sure what changed.

anderson.piper1mo ago

Man, that's rough. It's just like how people try to cut corners with quick fixes for everything these days. You see it with diet fads and get-rich-quick schemes. Everyone wants a magic button, but shortcuts always end up costing you more in the long run. Hope your shop gets back on its feet.