Alexis Kestler
Understanding Instagram's daily limits mean avoiding getting blocked or banned from the network. It is an event we are not thinking about until it occurs.
Understanding Instagram’s daily limits mean avoiding getting blocked or banned from the network. It is an unfortunate event we are not thinking about until it occurs. Most of the people out there still think that being blocked is just what happens after you annoy the girl you like. 🙂 Because they never reached the daily limits in any of Instagram’s actions. But for the people who use Instagram for their business, or marketing, this can happen easily. And it is more and more in the last couple of months.
When you want to grow your account, repeating the same actions over and over, every day, can get you into trouble. Things got complicated and tricky after Facebook bought Instagram and implemented some changes. They want to prevent spam and abuse, and that’s ok. But for the users whose jobs depend on it, legitimate marketers, this became a problem. By learning what you can and can not do, and adding some creativity, you can get around it. We are here to help.
Daily limits
First of all, I want to note that restrictions are not the same for new accounts and trusted accounts. When you just created your account, you will be “under the microscope” for some time. So be careful about following and unfollowing users, even if you are eager to get a certain number of followers to build your profile.
There is a simple infographic that shows Instagram’s daily limit in rough numbers. But don’t hang on to these because a lot of things depend on your account and your history. The most important thing is to act naturally because Instagram is trying to stop bots and automation on IG. So, even if you are using a program or a service, use your account as you would normally do.
For example:
- Write unique comments. Don’t use the words that can apply to multiple posts, such as “cool”, “beautiful”, “great” etc. Write full sentences, insert emojis, and do not act like a robot.
- The same goes for DMs. Don’t send the same message to multiple accounts. Personalize it and include the receiver’s profile name. Never include a link in your first DM. Spread them through the day.
- Answer comments personally. Also, try to be unique. Even if you notice that the comment is automated, respond to it.
- There is no genuine reason to watch your analytics through the automation tool because it will not save you any time. So, don’t do it. If you are serious about your Instagram marketing, you need to put the effort and time into studying your metrics, so you can easily do it on your profile.
Follow
There are multiple ways of finding and following new users. When you first create your account, the most common thing is to follow your friends. If you create a business account and you have personal, it is easy to find and follow them. Also, you can connect to Facebook and search for your friends there. Even if you are eager to do it all at once, the daily following limits are somewhere between 100 and 150 users per day.
If you are searching users through hashtags or other profiles relevant to your business, try to add as much variety as you can. Put the list of your hashtags/accounts on the paper and follow just a few from every section daily. That means not all at once from the same source. And certainly not the same day.
Unfollow
The logic is simple: the more people you follow, the more followers you can gain for yourself. But as not everyone will want to follow you back, through the time you will want to unfollow those people to scale the numbers. However, this is a tricky action. As it was one of the most overused, Instagram set the limit to following a maximum of 7500 people. And the daily limit for unfollowing somewhere between 100 and 150 people per day.
If you exceed that number, Instagram will temporarily block your account (same as for the following). You will not be able to follow and unfollow users for some time, which is usually between a couple of hours and two days. But if you try to do the following/unfollowing during the ban, it will just extend that time, so wait patiently.
Likes
Likes are usually not the action that will get you into trouble with Instagram or be recognized as spam, because this is something you can do (a lot) to increase your engagement. However, daily limits are set somewhere between 300 and 400 likes per day.
Just to be sure you are doing things right, like the most posts of the people you follow. But nothing bad will happen if you scroll through your search feed and like some of the posts you are favoring (and not following the user). Just don’t overdo it.
Comments
Instagram has been more strict with daily comment limits. Just 20 to 30 per day seems little, right? But comments and DMs are the most common way of spamming (or at least what Instagram considers spamming) and for both the restrictions are tough.
Automating comments can seem like an easy solution but think about it twice. You can only prewrite comments that can apply to multiple posts (which, I repeat, is a very bad idea because that is the first thing IG will figure out) and such comments can be inappropriate at some point. Imagine you are a boy who wants to write “beautiful” under beautiful girls’ posts. (Yes, I know its creepy. It is just an example.) But maybe a girl will post a photo of herself crying and write a caption about how sad she is because of something that happened. “Beautiful” is not really suitable there. See what I mean?
One more thing not a lot of people know: short comments and emojis are not recognized as an engagement. (And engagement is important for boosting your posts.) Comment should have at least 4 words to “work”.
Direct Message
Rules are almost the same as for comments: 20 to 30 DMs per day, and not sent in bulk. As I already mentioned, don’t include links in the first message, and try to personalize it as much as its possible. Using neutral statements is always a tricky action, so this is another fast way to get blocked. And not just that – receiving a lot of automated messages, users will probably ignore you. Especially if your DM ends up in “message requests”. So, if you want to contact someone, make sure it is well written, unique message.
Other daily limits
There are some other actions on Instagram which are not considered spamming, and that means they are unlimited. Those are the number of posts you share per day (although you should have a common sense there), the number of posts you want to save, and the number of posts you want to delete. But do not delete your posts in the first 24 hours, and also do not delete and post it again.
If you want to share a post with multiple photos, it can be up to 10 in one post.
Other limits
Instagram caption character limit is 2200 characters, which is around 400 words. Up to 30 hashtags are allowed in one post, although lately it has been recommended not to use a maximum because Instagram’s algorithms can also recognize it as spam. Try to use different hashtags in your posts, too. Only 20 people can be tagged in one post.
Your bio has a limit of 150 characters (including emojis and hashtags). You can add just one clickable link in your bio.
If you have any doubts, you can check Instagram’s Community Guidelines. Trying to outsmart its daily limits and algorithms can be a difficult task sometimes. But with a little creativity and organic content, you may never know what means to be blocked.
