On this week’s episode of The Rural Woman Podcast, you’re going to hear a special guest – me! I don’t often get the chance to do solo shows but I’ve been wanting to make a blog post I wrote earlier this year 10 Things I’ve Learned About Sharing My Ag Story Online into a podcast episode. With recent events (ie. having my Instagram account deactivated) I thought this would be a great opportunity to combine all of the old and new things I’ve recently learned about social media.

My Instagram Account was Deactivated

Back on September 3, I found an account over on Instagram mimicking my own. So creepy, right? They used my pictures, part of my captions, even put my website in their bio. I asked my community to report this account as a fake account, making a story and tagging the fake thinking nothing of it. The next day I woke up to find MY Instagram account was tagged as the fake account and deactivated by Instagram.

So in the first part of this episode, I take you through the three weeks of working to get my account reactivated and what I did to successfully get back on the ‘Gram. I want to take a quick minute here to acknowledge my amazing community online who helped me through this process. At already a stressful time of year for a farmer, this added stress was NOT needed. You all helped make it a little easier for me, thank you!

Another shout out to a woman I met online who had something similar happen to her, Robyn Lindars @grillgirlrobyn. She wrote a blog post about her situation and how she was able to get her Instagram account back as well. Check out What To Do If Your Instagram Account Gets Hacked for some helpful tips.

Top 3 Takeaways From Having my Instagram Account Deactivated

1. If you find a fake mimicking account, Do not tag the fake account in any stories or posts. Send DM’s to your friends and your community online and ask them to report them. You can make an IG story with a screenshot of your mimicker, just don’t tag them. In my experience there were more of them then there were of me making reports.
2. If you have built a following for your farm or your business through Instagram, make a facebook business page. Even if you don’t post on it you will still have access to Facebook Ad manager and will be able to open a ticket to talk to a real person. Even if your first ticket is closed, keep trying. This is what worked for others and they were able to get their accounts reactivated.
3. If you have a connection with a company/business who uses Facebook to advertise you can ask them if they have a contact person. *please note, I do NOT have a direct contact with anyone from Facebook*