If you’ve ever tried to deal with multiple social media accounts, you probably know the risks of getting your client’s profile banned… And all the struggles of hiding digital fingerprints with expensive tools that just drain your wallet. Let’s look at what problems marketers encounter and how to solve them.

Social media platforms are very strict about the number of accounts linked to a single IP address. Why? Because the administration wants to ensure that users don’t spam or misuse the platform in some shady way. If you don’t obey their rules, you might come across roadblocks.

What happens when you break the terms of service? You get a temporary block that can last from 24 hours to a whole month. So, if you’re a social media manager with twenty accounts, you’re not gonna want to tell your client that all of their accounts have been temporarily blocked.

Annoyingly, social networks can consider many activities as inappropriate behavior. A sudden spike of activity is typically the first indication of inauthenticity. For example, Instagram and Twitter have a maximum number of likes, comments, and follow/unfollow you can do daily. Violating these terms is pretty much a rule for flagging bot-like behavior.

Issues When Managing Multiple Social Media Accounts

The most common cause for getting a ban is when your account’s flagged as suspicious due to browser fingerprint or behavior inconsistencies. Here’s why.

A browser fingerprint is a unique digital identifier that allows websites to identify and track users. Websites collect information related to your browser type and device properties (default language, time zone, etc.) to pry into your habits online.

Every device has its own fingerprint. Accessing different accounts on the same device can link your profiles together and block them in bulk. The same happens when opening one account from multiple devices. If you’re not careful juggling those profiles, you’ll experience roadblocks on the way:

• Action blocks. Some social media platforms limit the number of accounts you can create from a single IP address. When you pass that limit, the social network gets notified and might block your account to protect other users from potential spam or other unwanted behavior. And that’s not all. The platform might block all the accounts from the same IP address, not only the last one created.

• Geo-restrictions. Handling accounts in different countries might flag your connection as a suspicious log-in everytime. Some brands use accounts in multiple locations to reach broader audiences. That means you might get stuck accessing the client’s account in another country because of geo-restrictions in yours.

• Verification requests or CAPTCHAs. Social media platforms openly state that they want users to be authentic. What happens when you manage different accounts with the same fingerprint? Well, you‘ll have to deal with verification requests or CAPTCHAs because your actions might look like a pattern of inauthentic behavior.

• Sharing with the team. When many people access the same account, they all show a different digital fingerprint. And when you access different accounts from the same device, all those profiles might look like they‘re linked to each other because the fingerprint is the same. This is just one big red flag for social networks. Moreover, juggling credentials between different colleagues increases the risk that they will be lost or mishandled.

How to handle multiple account management

Using proxy services can effectively optimize your social media usage. These are usually mobile or residential IP addresses that allow you to access social media platforms, rather than your own IP.

Websites are reluctant to block mobile IPs. Why? Mobile IP entered the market very late and most IPv4 addresses are already in use. That's when mobile operators started using CGNAT technology, and each IP could represent hundreds of users. Simply put, if a website bans one IP address, a large group of users can lose access. It's too risky. On the other hand, mobile proxies are the most expensive.

I generally don't recommend using data center proxies because they are relatively easy to detect and social media platforms aggressively fight multiple account managers. If you get a clean IP address, it might work for a while, but there is always a risk of being blocked. And residential IP addresses come from real people, so your online activity won't raise any red flags as all your accounts will appear real. And they are cheaper than mobile addresses. For example, our PIA residential proxy network has over 50 million real IP addresses for desktop and mobile devices. These residential proxies are great for social media like instagram, facebook, one click of the connect button and it will automatically assign a pre-checked proxy to your connection. This means you almost never get a dead proxy.