No matter what type of content you produce on TikTok, you always want to reach as many users as possible. After all, TikTok is the home of viral challenges and other wildly popular content. One reason that young people love TikTok so much is that they can be very creative and build their audience. And at the same time, the challenges provide a way to participate and even compete using a certain skill.
Likewise, marketers love the short and sweet messaging that is inherent in such brief videos. It does really well with accommodating short attention spans. Likewise, TikTok content can be very easy to repurpose as a TV commercial and vice versa, because of its brevity.
Unfortunately, sometimes your reach can be severely limited almost instantly. This is especially true if your account is shadow banned, because people will suddenly have difficulty finding your content. And if they are not looking for it at all, the chances are they won’t discover any of your videos.
Fortunately, there are ways to get yourself unshadowbanned so that you can enjoy the platform again. What follows is a description of shadowbanning. We’ll also look at what contributes to this section, and how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok. Many of these tips are surprisingly easy.
What is shadowbanning on TikTok?
Shadowbanning on TikTok, also known as a TikTok shadow ban, is an automatic process where a user’s content is not visible to other users on the platform. It also is usually a surprise — Shadowbanning happens without your knowledge, and TikTok does not notify you about it. You will simply see that people quit interacting with your content.
When a user is shadowbanned, their videos, hashtags, and comments are not visible or have a limited reach to other users, restricting their likes, views, traffic, growth, and engagement on the platform. Essentially, it is a state of suspended animation for your account, except that you can still post videos. There just isn’t much point in doing so for the length of your sanction. You’ll also want to avoid posting for reasons we’ll discuss later.
Why does TikTok shadowban users?
Part of knowing how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok requires an understanding of how you get shadowbanned in the first place. After all, at the end of the day you will achieve your goal by either convincing TikTok that you shouldn’t be shadowbanned anymore or by satisfying their objections.
First of all, TikTok shadow bans users for violating their community guidelines, officially known as TikTok’s community guidelines. Many of these guidelines are designed to protect user privacy and keep people safe. For instance, you can’t talk about things that glorify violence, normalize self-harm, involve bullying, or promote hate speech. However, some of these guidelines can be harder to navigate if you represent a medical brand or something else that can get swept up in an acceptable use debate. In other words, it’s possible to represent a legitimate brand and have a shadowbanning problem.
Second, shadowbanning on TikTok is a way for the platform to prevent users from spamming, posting adult content, inappropriate content, or engaging in suspicious activity that can be detrimental to other users and the platform. Here, you can think of terrorists or scammers. One wonders how many accounts were shadowbanned after the FTX crypto exchange collapse, for example. Of course, there are also many other things that can fit into these banned categories.
In addition, seemingly harmless activities can trigger a shadow ban. For example, you might like too many posts in a day, making TikTok think that you are either trying to get attention or increase everybody’s engagement illegitimately. Similarly, experts think you can be shadowbanned for following too many accounts in a day. Once again, this pattern can involve spamming behavior, such as trying to get people to check out your channel and return.
With that said, liking people’s content or following them is a legitimate activity. And even commercial accounts can benefit from doing this. As I’ve said before, this technique is a good prelude to engagement with influencers. Just don’t overdo it.
How long does the shadowban last?
Unfortunately, even if you avoid bad behavior, it’s still possible to get shadowbanned. Fortunately, shadowbanning on TikTok is a temporary measure and can be lifted if the user’s content is in compliance with TikTok’s guidelines. In other words, it’s a type of safety measure that allows bad behavior to stop while TikTok evaluates your account.
User experience shows that the ban can, on the short end, last for only 24 hours to a few days, and on the long end, last between 2 weeks and a month. And while a 24 hour sanction won’t affect your following much, two weeks to a month can be absolutely devastating. That’s why it’s essential to avoid getting shadowbanned if possible and to react quickly if it does happen.
How to know if you have been shadowbanned?
Because TikTok won’t tell you that you’ve been shadowbanned, you have to find out largely through observation, as is common on many social media platforms. Of course, your followers might let you know they haven’t seen your latest video or get frustrated that they can’t see your existing videos. However, this rarely happens.
Fortunately, because shadowbanning has consequences for your accounts, there are some telltale signs:
- A sudden drop in likes, views, and new followers. This is frustrating, and at the same time it’s pretty easy to detect, especially if you have access to analytics.
- Your videos no longer appear in people’s feeds or FYP. Arguably, this is a bigger red flag than the last one because you might have less activity after publishing a video that’s less popular.
- Your hashtags and videos stop appearing in people’s search results. This means that people basically can’t see your videos unless they already follow you.
- Nobody gets notifications about a new video. In other words, shadowbanning doesn’t just mean that the video doesn’t show up in their feed. They simply don’t hear about it at all.
Whenever you see these changes to your account, it’s a pretty good indicator that you may have been shadowbanned. At that point, you probably want to know how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok. That way, you’ll be able to share your talents with TikTok once again. Or if you’re running a branded account, then you’ll be able to reach out to your brand community again. This is very important.
Reasons why you may have been shadowbanned on TikTok
An important part of knowing how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok is understanding why this happened to you in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s hard to pinpoint a reason if you haven’t deliberately posted objectionable content on TikTok. You might have inadvertently violated TikTok’s community guidelines that might have triggered the algorithm.
Of course, part of the problem is that shadowbanning results from the algorithm, rather than human review. Although algorithms are very good normally when it comes to potential violations they can be a blunt instrument. Therefore, to have your account restored you ultimately need to satisfy the algorithm, not a human. And because you aren’t facing a formal ban, there are fewer ways to get a human review.
Further Reading: 9 Proven Ways How To Grow Your TikTok Account
How to get unshadowbanned on TikTok: 5 things to try
Being shadowbanned can be a frustrating experience for TikTokers. One moment you may be basking in the success of your latest video uploads, then suddenly they disappear. Now, it seems like no one is watching your videos that you’ve worked so hard to produce.
Fortunately, as the experience of many TikTokers has shown, there’s hope. Here are a few ways you can try and unshadowban your TikTok account. Each of them addresses a different reason why you might’ve been shadowbanned.
1. Check your recent uploads and delete them if they contain inappropriate content
Check your recent uploads and see if there’s anything that might have violated the community guidelines. If you are not sure what the guidelines are, visit the platform’s guidelines section and give it a quick read. Delete any videos that you think violate the rules. In short, do a thorough content cleanup.
Yes, this is a lot of work. However, try and think about it this way — anything that potentially violates the community standards can also be damaging your brand’s reputation. That’s true whether your brand is personal or a corporate brand. And Arguably, your channel will be better after you’ve done the cleanup.
Further Reading: The 15 Best TikTok Watermark Remover Websites and Apps for 2024
2. Stop posting new content
Don’t post fresh content until you figure out why you were shadowbanned. Your account may get suspended, or worse, get permanently banned. Remember, one of the biggest reasons for shadowbanning is violations of community standards. In this case, the last thing that you need is to give TikTok another reason to escalate sanctions on your account.
With that said, there are other reasons why you should stop posting while your account is shadowbanned. In particular, your content isn’t going to get the engagement or views that you want. So, it’s better to have that content show up when your account is back in good standing. Close, there’s always the chance that new content posted during a shadowbanned will somehow get tainted in the eyes of TikTok.
Further Reading: The Secret TikTok Emoji Codes: What They Are and How to Access Them
3. Reinstall TikTok
While a shadowban may or may not result from having an old version of TikTok, older versions certainly malfunction. So, it’s possible that you will think your account is shadowbanned, because your version of the app will show you results for your hashtags were properly display your likes. So, having an old version of the app can sometimes give you inaccurate indicators about the health of your account.
Additionally, running an old version of TikTok might make the algorithm think that you are a spammer. People who use TikTok inappropriately may not update their apps. This could be because they don’t care about the account, since they’ll just make another one after it’s banned.
Fortunately, this potential answer to how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok is really easy. Simply put, you will go to the section of your phone that lets you make changes to install that. The list TikTok from your phone, send downloaded again from your relevant app store. Once you log in again, you might find that your account is functioning properly. Or, it could be that the app-related reasons your account was flagged will go away.
Best of all, this is a quick solution, so even if it fails, you won’t have done a lot of work. And if it does work, then you will get a quick fix.
Further Reading: How Much Does TikTok Pay Content Creators and Influencers?
4. Avoid spammy activity
Do not go overboard with liking and following other users. This may be flagged as spammy behavior by the algorithm. If you have already been shadowbanned for this behavior, then the important thing to do is stop. My recommendation is to keep watching videos for a while, but engage with you or none of the videos you watch. Also, quit following people for a while.
This approach demonstrates that you know how to use TikTok without spamming anyone. Over time, you will once again look like a legitimate TikTok user. While this isn’t a quick fix user experience does show that it works. Plus, TikTok doesn’t shadowbanned people for more than two weeks. By correcting your behavior, you make sure that the shadowban doesn’t turn into a suspension or complete ban.
Further Reading: How to Get Verified on TikTok in 2024: 8 Tips to Follow
5. Upgrade to a pro account
While this does not ensure that this will work, it may help increase your reach eventually. People with a pro account have more options for reaching their audiences, such as boosting posts and other advertising options.
With that said, getting a pro account is a good idea if you want to monetize your account, or if you represent a brand. That’s because Pro accounts have access to analytics, such as likes and shares. You can use this information like you would any other set of analytics data.
Further Reading: Here is How to Change Your TikTok Username – in 5 Simple Steps
Conclusion
Being shadow banned on TikTok is a frustrating experience, especially since it means you don’t get rewarded for your hard work. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to avoid a shadowban if you understand what annoys the TikTok algorithm. And if you get shadow banned anyway, each of these techniques of how to get unshadowbanned on TikTok are relatively easy to implement.
Good luck.
Further Reading: Try These 15 TikTok Challenges to Generate Engagement in 2024!
Hero photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash
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