Score your account across three areas: how it behaves, where its content comes from, and how it is secured. Any tool holding your password, any month with a run of reposts, and any unlabelled synthetic content are the three findings that most often precede enforcement.
Nobody audits an Instagram account until something has already gone wrong. By then the useful window has usually closed, because most of what puts an account at risk is a habit rather than an event.
This takes about forty minutes. Answer yes or no. Be honest, because the person you would be fooling runs your marketing.
How to run it
Open the account settings on a phone, and your tool list on a laptop. Score one point for every no. A low score is good. Nothing here needs a specialist.
How the account behaves
This is the category that produces action blocks, feature limits and, eventually, disables. It is also almost entirely within your control.
| # | Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Every tool with access connects through Meta’s approved publishing route, not your password | Tools that log in as you produce exactly the pattern automated enforcement looks for |
| 2 | Nothing on the account auto-follows or auto-unfollows | The clearest single signal of inauthentic behaviour |
| 3 | Nothing sends unsolicited bulk DMs | Messaging volume is rate limited and heavily policed |
| 4 | No automated liking or commenting on hashtag or competitor feeds | Engagement automation is prohibited regardless of how it is described |
| 5 | You have never bought followers, likes, views or comments | Purchased engagement is detectable long after the purchase |
| 6 | The account is not in an engagement pod or like-for-like group | Coordinated engagement is treated as manipulation |
| 7 | Posting volume is steady rather than arriving in bursts | Sudden spikes read as automation even when they are not |
| 8 | Nobody logs in through a VPN, proxy or data centre connection | Flagged network addresses trigger checkpoints and identity challenges |
Where the content comes from
This category rarely gets you banned. It gets you quietly removed from recommendations, which for most brands is the more expensive outcome because it is invisible.
Meta’s published guidance on original content is direct about what does not count. Re-uploading something you had no part in creating is unoriginal, and so are low-value changes such as adding a border, adding captions, or changing the speed of someone else’s video.
| # | Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Most posts in the last 30 days are content you created | Recommendation eligibility is assessed at account level over a rolling window |
| 10 | No video carries another app’s watermark | Watermarks are used as an automatic signal that content came from elsewhere |
| 11 | Repurposed clips are genuinely re-edited, not re-captioned | Minor edits do not make someone else’s content yours |
| 12 | Any AI-generated or heavily synthetic content is labelled | Unlabelled synthetic content loses reach and can trigger authenticity review |
| 13 | No AI-generated likeness of a real person appears without consent | Synthetic faces and cloned voices sit close to the impersonation line |
| 14 | You hold the rights to all music and footage used | Copyright strikes accumulate towards enforcement |
| 15 | Captions do not make claims your category restricts | Health, finance and restricted goods claims are assessed on the caption as much as the video |
If you fail several of these, the fix is upstream of Instagram. It is usually a content supply problem: the team is reposting because there is nothing original ready to go. Which is worth knowing, because it is solvable with footage most brands already have sitting on a drive.
Account hygiene
| # | Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Two factor authentication is on for every admin | A compromised account that posts violating content is still your account |
| 17 | You have reviewed Account Status in the last month | Meta’s own record of strikes and restrictions, and most people have never opened it |
| 18 | You have downloaded your Instagram data in the last quarter | The only way to get messages and content out before a deletion |
| 19 | Original footage lives somewhere you control, not only in the app | Determines whether an account loss is a setback or a catastrophe |
| 20 | Someone other than one person can access the account | Single point of failure for recovery, especially after staff changes |
Scoring it
| Score | Reading |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 | Low exposure. Re-run this quarterly and keep the data download current. |
| 3 to 6 | Typical. Fix anything in part A first, then work through part B. |
| 7 to 11 | Elevated. At least one habit here is actively accumulating risk. Treat it as this month’s work. |
| 12 or more | High. Assume a restriction is more likely than not, and prioritise parts A and C today. |
What to fix first
In order, because doing them in this order costs the least and removes the most.
1. Remove every password-based connection
This is the highest-risk, lowest-effort fix available. Disconnect anything holding your credentials, change the password, and reconnect only tools that publish through the approved route.
2. Stop every form of engagement automation, today
Auto-follow, auto-DM, auto-comment. There is no safe volume and no clever configuration. The growth it produces is not worth the account.
3. Fix the content supply problem behind the reposts
Nobody reposts by choice. They repost because the calendar is due and nothing original is ready. The durable fix is a supply of original material you can cut from, which for most brands already exists as unedited footage nobody has looked at since it was filmed.
That last one is what we build, so read it with that in mind. The point stands regardless of whose software you use: original material you own is the only content that carries none of the origin risk in part B.
If you want the strategic version of this argument rather than the checklist, it is in own the footage, rent the feed.