7 Months In THE InstaJail

Hi Friends!   Today, I want to share with you what the HE double hockey sticks is going on with my IG account.

In August (during our move) I was locked out of my account for a few days, which I thought was weird but it never occurred to me my account was shut down.  When the account became available again I noticed I could not make ANY changes to my profile and the link back to my blog had been removed.  It was bizarre.  At first, I thought it was because I was using a new Link In Profile service.    I contacted the service and they said they are an “approved partner” of Instagram and that I had been link blocked.  In other words, Instagram thought my blog was spam.

Soon after I found out that I couldn’t edit my entire profile, so it wasn’t just my link, meaning I wasn’t link blocked.  The weird thing was I could still post and use Instagram stories.  So I submitted three support tickets per day with no response from Instagram for three months.   More research and talking to other bloggers determined that the error may be related to the fact that I changed my email address and IG never sent me a confirmation email.  I tried to get it to resend confirmation a bunch of times but it never worked.

I was getting really frustrated and Mr. Hungry said I should just give it up and start another account.  Finally, in January I gave in and started @thehungryhobbyrd and many of you seemed super happy to follow a new account that had a link you could follow.

That was a REALLY hard step for me because I’ve been using my original IG account @hungryhobbyRD since I signed up for Instagram in 2013.  I feel like it really documented my life and the blog, especially how I improved at food photography.

A couple of weeks ago I started telling everyone to unfollow @hungryhobbyRD because I thought it was dunzo. Then one-day last week I tried to edit my profile and it worked!  I was DUMBFOUNDED.  My account had been broken for over 7 months!

So now what?  Well the big issue I do not want to get in trouble for duplicate accounts (I’m posting the same photo to both accounts.)  I don’t know why I got in trouble the first time, other than potentially the email confirmation thing, and I don’t want to get in trouble again.

The thing is, the blog is also my livelihood. As you know I don’t take just any sponsored post, I’m VERY selective about who I partner with.  I’ve turned down offers to work with products such as diet coke and Splenda because I do not believe in those products.  Reach is important to most companies, so, starting a new account from scratch automatically meant I lost those opportunities.  Moreover, I also lose opportunities to bring you guys free stuff which is also a bummer.  I hate that it’s the way it is, but it is just the nature of the beast.

Also, not have a working Instagram account for so long has made me realize how much I actually really like Instagram as a social media platform.  It’s the one I use the most to follow my friends and favorite bloggers.  It’s the one I feel like I can connect with you guys on the best, I can literally talk directly to you via Instastories.

So all that being said, I do not want my account to get shut down again.

A blogger friend posted that last week in a group we are in, I laughed so hard I almost peed.

So the question is what do I do with that new account @thehungryhobbyrd?  I’ve submitted support requests to merge the two accounts, but I’m not holding my breath.  So that means I’ll probably have to close that account as soon as possible. So, if you were one of the AMAZING people that saw my posts and started following the new account I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for that support.  You don’t know how much that meant to me when I felt like I was starting from scratch again, your support was unbelievable.  So here is what I’m going to do, for those of you who followed the new account there will be a small random giveaway on that account before I stop posting to it all together.  After that, I’ll go back to only using the original @hungryhobbyRD account.

Last couple months I felt like a crazy person posting to multiple accounts, asking you to follow one account then unfollow another one, explaining to family/friends why it mattered, and now asking you to go back and follow the old account.  Thank you again for your support during all that!  So, if you haven’t already followed @hungryhobbyRD or if you unfollowed it, please go back!

Have you ever been put in social media jail?  What happened? 

What’s your favorite social media platform?