After IG account with 25K followers “deleted or hacked,” bakery forced to start from scratch on social media

The Columbus location of a popular international bakery (at least temporarily) lost one of its social media accounts in the blink of an eye, and now it’s scrambling to put the pieces back together.

According to Tasha Mascareno, Social Media Manager at PeakReach Management–a central Ohio marketing firm that helps Tous Les Jours manage the local social media pages for its Columbus storefront–the concept’s local Instagram account was unexpectedly suspended.

“We can’t figure out why they closed the account but it seems they think we were pretending to be Tous Les Jours USA,” she told 614Now. “It’s completely unreasonable. There is nothing that page did that was not following guidelines.”

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The account, which had 25,000 followers, received a suspension notice yesterday, with instructions that they had 180 days to send an appeal, or the account will be lost forever. PeakReach has created a new Instagram account for Tous Les Jour’s Columbus location here.

Mascareno admitted that it’s possible the account may have been hacked, but at the time this story was published they have received no additional information about the suspension. They have also already filed an appeal, but now are stuck waiting to hear back.

“There’s no arguing with Meta,” she said.

While losing a personal social media account feels more like an inconvenience, she stressed the importance accounts like Tous Les Jours’ hold for brands in today’s market.
“It’s unfortunate to watch this happen to my client because these are human beings that decide to open up their own business, and sadly social media is the number one way to market your business these days.” Mascareno said. “Post-COVID nobody is looking at billboards or the newspaper, they check their phones and look at IG and TikTok to see what is popular.”

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