As I am sure many of you already know, my Instagram account was disabled back in February of 2021 (more on that HERE). At the time that I am writing this post, my account remains disabled with my chances of getting it reactivated not looking too great (but who knows?! ) As a result of not having this Instagram account, I was forced into looking for new ways to market myself and my business on social media. One route that I decided to explore is the world of Facebook business pages. Everything seemed to be off to a good start until I randomly received a message from Facebook one day stating that my account was disabled for violating an ad policy… Sounds familiar, right?!
As I am sure that you have already guessed, this pretty much took me over the edge. I mean, how is it possible for someone to lose not only their Instagram but also their Facebook business account simultaneously?! Well, it surely happened to me and to say that I was upset was definitely an understatement. Despite my frustrations with Facebook and Instagram, I had a feeling that I would have better luck in getting my Facebook ad account back than my Instagram one.
Why?
It’s simple: It all has to do with money! Within my Facebook business account, I am running paid ads to promote my content to both Instagram and Facebook! Facebook is directly benefitting from my account as they are receiving payments from me to run ads on their platforms. As a result, when my account is disabled, I can no longer pay them for their services and they are losing out on my money. They have an incentive to reactivate my account which means that they are more likely to do it.
When we look at Instagram (who is owned by Facebook by the way), it is a very different story. In the 5+ years that I had my Instagram account, Instagram never received any monetary gains from me. Therefore, they have no incentive to reactivate my account. That being said, I have very little hope in that account being restored without luck or finding someone who works within the company to help me.
So How Did I Get It Back?
Getting it back was actually fairly easy! First, I went to the Facebook Business Help Center and filled out an appeal form. It was pretty simple to fill out and took only a few minutes to complete. Immediately afterwards, I went into a chat with a Facebook Business Center Help Agent to address the issue and make sure that there was nothing else that I needed to do. The person that I chatted with was quite helpful in making sure that the issue was addressed quickly. {NOTE: No matter how nice you are to these representatives, bring up Instagram in a chat and the mood immediately becomes negative and unhelpful.} To my surprise, I received an email from Facebook stating that my account was reactivated within the next 2 days. And that was it! I was back up and running!
What I Have Learned From This
I’m not going to lie to you, constantly losing access to social media accounts and business resources has actually been very mentally exhausting. Talking about all of this stuff can be quite triggering for me (as I’m sure that you can probably tell). BUT I am sharing all of this with you so that if this happens to you, you can still move forward and have hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. What has been the biggest eye-opening moment for me in this whole experience, is that as a business-owner, you really need to be ready for anything to happen at any moment. You are never safe! Unless, you own your own platforms (i.e. website) and have your own following (via email), anything and everything that you have worked for online can be taken away from you in a moment. At the end of the day, a company is a company; They only care about how much money they are making, not their customers. That was made extremely clear to me in how Facebook has been giving me the run-around with my entire Instagram fiasco. Despite the challenges that I have faced coming into 2021, I know that my business will continue to grow and evolve. Focusing on the items that are within my control are what is keeping me sane and motivating me to keep moving forward!
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