Can anyone relate to this instagram problem?

[weirdo]

As a newbie to instagram, I was told that the best way to get likes and followers was to use hashtags. So I did, and I got several likes and new followers. After a while, that stopped. And by that I mean I no longer get likes or followers because my photos don't even show up on the tagged page. I've tried everything from uninstalling/reinstalling the app, using different hashtags, checking to see if any of them are banned, linking my instagram to facebook, using statigram, and the list goes on. Nothing. Works. Apparently people have been having this problem since 2012 and almost no one has had any luck with solving it. Instagram is sending out a pretty bad first impression from a beginner's point of view and apparently they took their contact number off the site so you can't contact them at all. Can ANYONE relate to this problem and has anyone fixed it?