Instagram hashtags work by organising and categorising photo and video content. Using relevant, targeted hashtags on your Instagram posts and stories is still one of the best ways to get discovered by new audiences on Instagram. Do it correctly, and you usually can expect to get more engagement, more followers, and more clicks to your business website.
Hashtags
People search on #hashtags to discover content which they are interested in. As such, the right hashtag can put you in front of the audience you want to see your stuff even if they don’t already know you or follow you.
If you have a public Instagram account and add a hashtag to a post, that post will be visible on the corresponding hashtag page which is a collection of all the photos and videos that were tagged with that same hashtag.
For example, if I upload a pic of my Persian Ragdoll cat, Moo, and tag her #ragdollcat #persiancat, this then groups her picture with similar pictures. This means that anyone who is interested in Persian or Ragdoll (or both) cats can search using those hashtags and they will see Moo’s pic. If you’ve found this blog piece via Instagram, chances are you were searching for #socialmediatips or something similar which is what I hashtagged the post on IG with.
- You can use up to 30 hashtags on a post and 10 on a story.
- If someone has made their profile private, you won’t see them on any hashtag group pages.
- Numbers are allowed in hashtags, but spaces and characters like &%$ are not allowed.
- You can, however, use emojis to express a feeling like #😀
- You can only add hashtags to your own posts. You can’t tag other people’s photos/videos.
The Different Types of Instagram Hashtags
Understanding the different types of hashtags and their corresponding audiences is crucial to working out an effective Instagram strategy.
Group or Community Hashtags
These are hashtags that connect like-minded users around a specific subject, for e.g. #cats #manchesterunitedfootballclub #taylorswiftfans They are great for connecting with others with the same interests and growing your own community.
Under the community or group ‘umbrella’ you could have:
- Hashtags indicating a product or service e.g. #beautytherapist #make up #socialmediaguru
- Hashtags indicating your niche in your industry, so #lashes #weddingmua #instagramtips
- Instagram’s communities, like: #catsofinstragram #teachersofinstagram #booksofinstagram
- Tags for special events: #FACup, #royalwedding #internationalwomensday
- Locations: #york #london #coffeeinbrisbane
- Days of the week: #throwbackthursday #mondaymotivation #sundayvibes
- Hashtags with phrases relevant to what you do, like #teacherlife or #bakerylove
- Hashtags with emojis, like #🇬🇧 #⚽
Now since you can use upto 30 tags, and the more tags you use, the more likely it is that your post will get seen, it makes sense to use a variety of these. So, if I were posting my picture of Moo on Tuesday 17th March, I might tag it as follows:
#persian #ragdoll #catsofinstagram #catlover #tuesday #☘️ #stpatricksday
The first posts are saying what the pic is, the second two are community tags, and 17th March is of course St Patrick’s Day. Okay, I’m probably taking a bit of liberty with that one, but hey, it’s all about being seen, right? Actually, no (more on this below), the tags need to relevant. There is nothing to stop me starting a new hashtag #catsonstpatricksday and that could be quite niche, but randomly putting irrelevant hashtags on the end of posts will just annoy people.
Generally, the best way to find and use community hashtags is by looking at accounts that you like and follow yourself and seeing what tags they use.
Creating your own brand Instagram Hashtag
If you’re taking your marketing seriously it’s a good idea to create your own hashtag.
Try and choose one that is unique to your brand and keep it as niche as possible.
So, if you’re an artist, just using #art is too broad, but #paintingsbymary niches it right down. You could use your business name or you could use a slogan like Nike’s #justdoit.
Naturally, it should be something easy to spell and remember, so if your business is called ‘Nails by Marree’ (i.e. an unusual spelling of ‘Marie’), you might want to change it to ‘NailsbyM’ or something people are less likely to get wrong.
Once you’ve decided what your personal hashtag is going to be, you should use it in all of your marketing posts. Try and also encourage your viewers and audience to use it too. That way, it can also reach people who are your audience’s audience and bring their attention back to you. A good way of doing this is to remind people in your posts that they can see more stories, blog posts etc by tapping your hashtag.
How to Find the Best Instagram Hashtags for Your Account
As should be clear by now, the very popular hashtags get used over and over again. As such, you’re not going to get tons of likes and follows just by tagging your posts #beauty #love #saturdaynight as there is too much competition. It is better to try and use a mixture of less popular and more niche hashtags as well as the bigger ones. My favourite #instaguru, Jenn Herman, @jenns_trends, recommends using the full 30 tags for maximum potential exposure and working to the following formula. Let’s suppose I have a great pic of a girl with blonde hair and amazing lashes:
4–5 really popular tags (e.g. #beauty)
5–6 moderately popular (e.g. #blondegirl)
2–5 niche specific (e.g. #lashes #longlashes); and
1–3 branded (e.g. #your-own-hashtag #Svanslashes)
How can you find the best Instagram hashtags for you?
The best way is simply to look and see what hashtags your own audience, viewers, competitors, and industry are using? Who do YOU follow? What hashtags do they use? If you want to be really serious, start keeping notes of the same ones which pop up over and over again and make your own hashtag vault to copy and paste each time you post. Some of the scheduling tools, e.g. Later or Buffer, allow you an easy way to do this for pre-scheduled posts.
Research Your Audience
Throwing a bunch of random hashtags at the end of your posts isn’t going to grow your audience (remember what I said earlier about tagging my cat on St Patrick’s Day?) You need to make sure that your hashtags fit the content you’re publishing.
For example, if you’re posting a sweet pic of your children at a party, you wouldn’t use your #beauty #tanning #siennaX vault for this as it just wouldn’t be appropriate. Your hashtags should be relevant to your post and contain the keywords and content that your audience is actually searching for.
Finding Related Hashtags
As marketers, we should keep up with trends that are relevant to our own industry and hashtags. Researching these on Instagram is also a great way to grow your own community.
- Start by simply typing your hashtag e.g. #beautytherapist into IG’s search bar.
- Now select ‘tags’ from the drop down menu.
- You should now be able to see all of the top hashtags relating to your own hashtag.
- Spend a few minutes browsing through the posts that contain these and see if you can pick up any new hashtags that you’re not already using that you could include in future posts.
- Make a note of them for later use.
Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Stories
Adding hashtags to your Instagram story is a great way to give your content an added chance to be discovered by new audiences. You can add as many as 10 hashtags to each Instagram story, including one clickable hashtag sticker.
You can make the text based hashtags bigger or smaller, or even hide them under a GIF, picture, or sticker if you’re worried about them interfering with your beautifully crafted story. If you are going to do this, don’t make the text too small as Instagram still needs to be able to read it.
Final Tips on Using Instagram Hashtags
Instagram Hashtags are a great way to market your business and you should think about using them as often as possible. Put it this way, if your goal is to get your post seen then you NEED to be using them!
That said, they’re not always appropriate. I have two IG accounts, one of which is my personal account. I rarely use them on my posts in my personal account as the content is oriented towards my children, food (I’m on a weight loss journey at the moment!) and family type things. I’m not trying to get likes or follows on this account, and the people who do follow it are nearly all those who know me in real life.
At the end of the day, it’s best to weigh the tone or topic of your post, along with what you’re hoping to achieve, and then decide if it makes sense to use hashtags.
In terms of which ones you’re using, don’t forget to review them now and again and make sure they’re still effective and up to date. Also, try and avoid overly spammy type tags such as #YOLO #liveforever #livingmybestlife etc as they’ve been done to death. Be authentic and focus on what you’re trying to achieve.
Should you use them at the end of a post or throughout it? This one’s really up to you. I personally think it looks tidier to have them at end in one bunch, but some people say it looks more natural to have them throughout the post. It’s really an aesthetic decision as there is no difference in how Instragram reads or reacts to where the hashtags are posted.
So, in summary, using Instagram hashtags strategically is a great way to connect with customers, find content created about you by your followers, and build long-term relationships with influential partners. Why not try some new ones today!
I hope this has been helpful for you, and as ever please let me know how you get on! #goodluck
