Did you know that Instagram has banned a bunch of commonly used hashtag? And by using these hashtags, you could be potentially damaging your salon brand across social media?!
Here are some innocent-sounding hashtags you may be currently using on your salon social posts that are banned - #tanlines #newyears #valentinesday #ig #beautyblogger #beautydirectory #sunbathing #instamood #humpday #likeback #besties #followforfolllow #goddness. Some of these hashtags are banned temporarily, while others are permanently prohibited. But either way, using them on your posts could shadowban or penalise your Instagram account.
Using hashtags on your salon Instagram marketing
Hashtags are valuable for your Instagram marketing as they can increase your reach and get your salon seen by a new, relevant audience. Which in turn leads to more new clients for your salon business. So rather than dropping them all together as they are such an important part of your salon social marketing, we suggest you read on to discover how you can avoid these banned hashtags.
Why Instagram bans certain hashtags
Instagram is on a mission to reduce spam, fake accounts and scammers. It was revealed that spammers were jumping onto popular hashtags and abusing them, so now their bots look for Instagram accounts that use certain hashtags and flag them as spam.
What is a shadowban?
Using banned hashtags on Instagram could results in your account receiving a shadwoban from Instagram. This means your posts don’t show up in general Instagram searches, which means you become invisible to potential new followers and clients. This is not good news for those salons looking to grow their business!
How do I know if an Instagram hashtag is banned?
The bad news is that Instagram doesn’t make it easy for you, and their list on banned hashtags change on a daily basis. To check if a hashtag is currently banned by Instagram:
Go to the explore tab.
Type the hashtag in the search bar.
Click on it.
If you see a message along the lines of ‘recent posts from #sunbathing are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram’s community guidelines’ then it’s banned.
Don’t use it.
Avoid these hashtags on your salon social
Take a look through this list below and see if you’ve used any of these recently. If you have a post that didn’t perform well and it used one or more of these hashtags, you might have found your answer.
If you are desperate to use one of these hashtags then make sure you check it out first as some hashtags are only prohibited temporarily, so listings are never totally accurate.
