If you notice that your Facebook Page engagements recently start dipping and followers dropping either sharply or slowly, here are the reasons for why that happens and what you need to do about it.
I understnd that for most Facebook content creators, what you would check first is; if Facebook has stopped recommendation for your Page.
But, NO. The decline in engagements we are talking about here is not due to a lack of regular posting or updates. Neither is it due to an obvious ban, limitation or sanction on your Facebook profile or limited distribution of your Facebook Page posts.
- Decline in Facebook Page Organic Views As Experienced By A Client - the Intro
- What Caused the Decline in Organic Views
- What Exactly is A Shadow Ban?
- How to Identify A Shadow Ban
- What Can Cause Shadow Ban for A Facebook Page
- For How Long Can Facebook Shadow Ban A Page?
- What to Do If your Facebook Page is Impacted By Shadow Ban
- How to Prevent Recurrence of Shadow Ban
- Conclusion
- FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
The issue here is; even if you upload posts on your Page everyday, you would still notice that your Page organic views are dropping and with it, followers are dropping too.
As you may have known, or perhaps, already guessing; there are clearly many reasons for which a Facebook Page might experience a decline in engagements and reduced followers; and in most of these cases, if you check well, Facebook already hinted of why your Page views may be declining through a or, several notifications.
In most of the situations described in the paragraph above, either your Page or the profile of an admin of that Page is been penalized for a violation of either of Facebook content monetization policy, Facebook community standards, Facebook copyright policy or all of these policy notices combined.
And that is understandable. But, what if your Facebook Page organic views starts dipping and followers dropping too, overall scanty engagements become noticeable without any visible limitations imposed on your Page by Facebook?
Before I proceed into revealing what the issue is, let me give you an intro, feeding you with similar issues experienced by some of our Influencer Contractors Facebook pages.
Decline in Facebook Page Organic Views As Experienced By A Client - the Intro
Around January this year, that is about 5 to 6 months ago, a major decline in engagements was noticed in one of our top performing content creators Facebook page and we decided to take a closer look into it.
Taking a closer look, we discovered that;
- The issue had started about 5 days prior.
- When compared to the last 28 days, the Page has had about 38% decline in organic views.
- The net followers were in a negative of around 1,650 on average per day. Thus, the Page losses about 1,650 followers per day.
Quite baffling!
A Page that was having additional net followers of about 12,117 daily was now having a negative net followers?
What Caused the Decline in Organic Views
Having checked for possible notifications for Page violations everywhere necessary including the Page, connected groups, Page admins profiles and found nothing unusual, we decided to take it further by contacting the client for some dialogue.
We Conducted A Test
During our conversation, we discovered that the client had traveled to a new country that is not eligible for Facebook monetization and was using VPN to access his profiles so that his Page may remain monetized.
Few things to note;
- Using VPN should never have constituted that problem
- Owing to how the Page was setup, it would have remained monetized without VPN anyways.
- According to him, he never had any difficulties accessing his profiles.
- And Facebook never gave him any suspicious account access notifications.
What we did;
- Engaging him via zoom, we checked his login activities for the period.
- Collected the details of his login sessions
- Removed all the admins on the Page but one, repeated this cycle once in every 3 days.
Our Conclusion
About 16 days into it, we came to a conclusion; the Facebook Page was shadow banned.
By the end of the shifts, experimenting to check if any of the admin profiles was responsible for the issue, and it was indeed one of them. The Facebook Page was impacted by a shadow ban because one of the IP addresses he was using has been blacklisted or reported for spamming.
We also discovered that the IP address was changing rather too often for the same Facebook profile and within a short period of time.
NOTE:
This discovery does not mean that is the ONLY reason for which a Facebook Page can be Shadow banned. As a matter of fact, there are many reasons which are also covered in this article.
What Exactly is A Shadow Ban?
According to wikipedia, Shadow Ban is the practice of blocking or partially blocking a user or the user's content from some areas of an online community in such a way that the ban is not readily apparent to the user, regardless of whether the action is taken by an individual or an algorithm. For example, shadow-banned comments posted to a blog or media website would be visible to the sender, but not to other users accessing the site.
Meanwhile, a shadow banned Facebook Page would have posts posted displayed to only a fraction of the Page existing followers and not to new audiences with the exception of;
- Facebook users that search for the Page name or closely related names on Facebook.
- The Page admins regardless of either the admins follow the Page or not.
How to Identify A Shadow Ban
Up until 2022, Meta was claiming that Shadow banning was not a thing and you can check this post on X by Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s Chief Executive Officer to confirm it. But it became more apparent recently that, shadow banning is in fact a thing and it has become common on Meta platforms including Instagram and Facebook.
So, how can you know when your profile has been impacted by shadow ban
Identifying Shadow Ban on Facebook Page
Your Page is shadow banned if;
- Your Page is recommenable.
- Your Page has no violations that resulted in limited distribution sanction or penalty.
- Your Page admin profile has no limited status.
- YET, your Page organic views, engagements and followers keep dropping.
- Your Page posts DO NOT come up in searches except for the Page name.
Identifying Shadow Ban on Facebook Profile
For a user profile, the only way to know if your profile has been impacted by shadow ban is to ask friends and colleagues to check for you if they are able to see your posts in their timelines. - this is the only way to test and know a shadow banned user profile.
Otherwise, you may never know.
What Can Cause Shadow Ban for A Facebook Page
A page would most likely be impacted by shadow ban if the Page or any of the Page admins constantly engages in any or all of these;
- Posting of contents that are constantly blocked by a sizable number of audiences.
- Has an admin that has been flagged by Facebook system for spamming.
- Repeatedly posts the same content on the Page too many times. NOTE: So far, I have seen that posting the same content again within 180 days interval has no negative impacts.
- Posting too many unoriginal contents especially, if copied-pasted from popular Pages and profiles.
- Accessing your Page from blacklisted IP addresses.
- Adding and removing of Page admins too frequently within a short while.
- Deleting too many posts on the Page within a short while.
For How Long Can Facebook Shadow Ban A Page?
Similar to other sanctions; shadow banning on a Page can be there for;
- 24 hours
- Up to 7 days
- 0 - 30 days
- 0 - 90 days
- 0 - 180 days
And if before the expiry of another, another offence that is deserved of shadow banning is committed by the Page or an admin of the Page, Facebook either extends the shadow ban or outrightly limits the Page.
What to Do If your Facebook Page is Impacted By Shadow Ban
Shadow banning is not permanent and just like other Facebook bans, shadow banning may last from a few days to 180 days; depending on the depth of the violations that was committed by the Page or the Page admins.
Therefore, in most cases, the only solution is to wait it out. Thus, wait until Facebook lifts the shadow ban on the Page.
But, in the case where the Page is affected by an admin that has been shadow banned, once discovered, removing that admin from the Page lifts the shadow ban on the Page within 48 hours.
How to Prevent Recurrence of Shadow Ban
There are a number of things you can do to prevent your Facebook Page from being shadow banned and below here I have a list of them;
- Desist from creating content that will make your audiences mute, block or report your Page.
- Stop posting links on your Page.
- Posting of harmful, illegal or violent contents may get your Page shadow banned quicker.
- If you plan to delete some posts, DO NOT DELETE more than 50 posts within 48 hours.
- Engage your audiences politely and respecfully. Abusive comments can impact your Page negatively.
- In case you need to, always use clean IP addresses to access your Page and profiles.
- Stop accessing your Facebook Pages and profiles using proxy servers.
- Stop posting copy-pasted content over and over again.
- Desist from using banned hashtags. Use this checker to verify if you are using banned hashtags. It works for both Instagram and Facebook.
Conclusion
As frustrating as it could be, shadow banning is not a big deal especially, knowing that it is only a temporary measure, it should not deter you from your normal posting routine.
While others may suggest taking a break from Facebook when shadow banned, the best idea would be to limit your posts by cutting it to half or a quarter of what you used to post daily or weekly.
However, the best way to guide against recurrence is playing by the rules of Meta platforms.
FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
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What is Shadow Banning?
Shadow banning is a correctional measure that requires social media platform to ban a user’s content from showing up in their followers, friends and audiences timelines and feeds without notifying the user.
Although the user may still be able to post and respond to messages and comments, but only they can see their own posts.
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How Long Does Shadow Ban Lasts on A Facebook Page?
Actually, this depends on the severity of the violation or set of violations, and whether you have received shadow bans before.
With that said, shadow bans can last from a few days to 180 days on a Facebook Page.
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How Do I Avoid a Shadow Ban?
First, abide by the platform community standards policy and then, the followings;
- Desist from creating content that will make your audiences mute, block or report your Page.
- Posting of harmful, illegal or violent contents may get your Page shadow banned quicker.
- If you plan to delete some posts, DO NOT DELETE more than 50 posts within 48 hours.
- Engage your audiences politely and respecfully. Abusive comments can impact your Page negatively.
- Desist from using banned hashtags.
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How Do I Fix a Shadow Banned Facebook Page?
Because shadow banning is not permanent, in most cases, the only solution is to wait it out. Thus, wait until Facebook lifts the shadow ban on the Page.
However, there are cases where you can fix it within 48 hours - such cases are already quoted from above.
