Posted by Love them, hate them, have a hard time finding them or just don’t care about them. You cannot afford to ignore them.
They are Instagram hashtags for you ✨
You need them because you want your account to be found on Instagram, because you want more visibility in front of the right set of people and you want those extra likes on your post. And there is nothing more powerful than these hashtags when it comes to that. (Okay, so ads are, but that’s not organic.)
“But I don’t know which hashtags to use.”
“There are just too many of them and I can’t be bothered.”
“It’s too much work.”
“Do they really work?’
I’m going to help you with all of these questions and more. Let’s understand our hashtags better and use them with confidence.
How do Instagram hashtags work?
Every time you create a post on Instagram and add a caption along with some hashtags to it, the post becomes searchable and discoverable by other users. This helps a lot of users to discover your content and in turn optimises the reach of your post(s).
6 Dos Of Using Hashtags
1. Use relevant hashtags.
Make sure your hashtags match your post. The image/video you use, the caption you add and the hashtags you use should make sense together or else, you won’t impress anyone and your post will be a flop.
2. Find and hashtags your target audience might be interested in.
Sample a set of your target audience and look at the hashtags they follow. Make a list of these hashtags and find the ones that are most common and then use them.
3. Use a mix of well-known and niche hashtags.
It’s important to make sure you strike a balance between using a popular enough hashtag that other users search for and one that is not too popular so that it does not get lost in the plethora of posts that carry the same hashtag.
4. Use specific hashtags and create your own hashtags.
If you are trying to establish yourself, using specific hashtags in all your posts and creating your own special hashtags is very useful in long run. These hashtags will help you stand out and create your idenity.
5. Use 3-5 hashtags per post.
Now, I know you want to use all 30….or 15…or as many as you can but Instagram said this on their account and I am only repeating it…. it is 3-5 hashtags per post… if you get these 3-5 right, that’s all you need.
6. Hashtags go with your caption, not as first comment.
Again, this is something Instagram shared in one of their stories where they mentioned that hashtags used in captions are the only ones that play a role in discovery.
3 don’ts of Instagram hashtags
1. Don’t use irrelevant hashtags.
No one appeared on the explore page by using the hashtag #explorepage. It is just an overused hashtag that leads you nowhere. So, stop using this and other hashtags that have nothing to do with your post.
2. Generic hashtags do nothing for you
#picoftheday? Well maybe for you but tell me who is going to look for that hashtag? Don’t use it just because you can add 30 hashtags.
3. Overusing hashtags
Do your research before finalising your hashtags. You just need 5 good ones and not 30 random ones. If you’re using 30, you are using too many.
Everything being said, it is important to understand that your content needs to be solid for you to be discovered. Your hashtags will help a little but nothing, absolutely nothing trumps quality content.
That’s it, folks!
If you have any tips, strategies for using #hashtags or Instagram in general, I’d love to know about it in the comments section below 😊
With Crowdfire Hashtag Manager and eliminate that extra step of copy-pasting hashtags.
Sam, you promised 5 don’ts.
Oops!
Thank you very helpful