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2022 Instagram Hashtag Guide: How to Get More Reach and followers
Instagram hashtags can play a significant role to reach your Instagram goals. Use them wisely and you’ll get your posts and stories seen by many more people. You will be able to reach more people on Instagram and maintain your engagement. Using the wrong hashtags can actually do more damage, from annoying followers to getting penalized by Instagram’s algorithm. So the bottom line is to use hashtags for Instagram effectively. Understand exactly how an Instagram hashtag works, and do some brainstorming rather than simply doing copying or pasting.
What are Instagram hashtags?
A hashtag is a combination of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by the # symbol (e.g., #diysocialads). They are used to categorize content and make it more discoverable.
Hashtags are clickable. They are like hyperlinks. When someone clicks on an Instagram hashtag or conducts an Instagram hashtag search, will see a page showing all the posts tagged with that hashtag.
Why Should I Use Instagram Hashtags?
Hashtags are more than style additions to your Stories or post captions. When you use them strategically, they can benefit your account and your content in real ways that is make them searchable. Thousands of user generated content is added to Instagram everyday. Displaying your content to the users who are looking for it is possible with the use of hashtags. Following are some of the reasons that why #hashtags are necessary.
Enhance your brand’s reach
It is no secret that , organic reach has been declining on Instagram. Which made it increasingly difficult for brands to ensure that their message reached out to their followers.
By using #hashtags , brands can boost reach by telling Instagram what their post is about. Instagram can use this information to display your content to followers who are interested to engage with relevant topics.
Easy discovery on the Instagram
Instagram introduced the #hashtags concept so that users can find new content based on hashtags alone. Users can click on hashtags or search for them in the Explore tab to find relevant content.
Instagram has also facilitated its users in another way. Users can follow hashtags by clicking the blue Follow button on any hashtag page. Instagram will automatically serve hashtagged content in users’ feeds, even if users are not brand followers.
In other words more people can discover your brand and engage with your posts. If they like your content then, they can become your follower.
Promote campaigns
Many hashtags are descriptive or contextual, but they don’t necessarily have to fit those definitions. You can also use hashtags to promote your brand or your marketing campaigns.
Because hashtags are searchable and trackable, you can easily monitor brand or campaign performance. For example, you can see how many times people have hashtagged your brand or entered your giveaway.
Tag more User Generated Content(UGC)
Once your #hashtag is associated with content , there will be more brands that will use the same hashtag. Instead, customers, fans, and even influencers are likely to add your hashtag to their similar content. Hence more user generated content will be associated and hence provide better experience to the users of the Instagram. Which will lead to more people will join the Instagram channel.
With #hashtag Instagram users can search hashtag at any time to see what others have posted about related hashtag. If the hashtag is associated with the brand then it can promote the brand. Hashtags will increase the users engagement , if hashtags are relevant then followers might even want to share the posts in their feed and give the original creator credit
Building communities
Assigning hashtags to Instagram content also allows others to join the conversations that is relevant to your channel. Hashtags also contribute in the awareness among communities by highlighting the social or other issues which are topics of the week. Hence a sense of community is developed among people as all the relevant material is easily accessable.
Best Practices for Instagram Hashtags
By now we all are convinced that how helpful hashtags can be. Next question which comes in mind is how many , where and what type of hashtags one should start adding to your Instagram content right now. Use the tips below to make your hashtag strategy as effective as possible.
How many hashtags to add are enough
Instagram has hashtag limits , you can add up to 30 on posts and up to 10 on Stories. But should you always use maximum number of hashtags?
Research shows that using as many hashtags as possible leads to dramatically more likes. Having said that , more people will find your content through search or discovery when they search for hashtags. If the hashtags used are relevant to the content and content itself is meaningful then hopefully they’ll engage too.
But if you can’t think of enough hashtags to reach the maximum numbers? Don’t force it and never use unrelated hashtags just for the sake of filling the gap. Unrelated hashtags will do more harm than good.
Place hashtags in Instagram posts
Using large number of hashtags appear less appealing to the viewers. That forces some creators to put hashtags in the comments section rather at the end of the post caption. Placing hashtags in the comment section will make the caption section more visually attractive and still fulfill the requirements of putting the hashtags and hence make your post discovered by the users when needed.
Experiments have shown that posts perform better when hashtags stay in the captions. Use of hashtags in posts results in better reach and more likes. There’s no reason to use them in the comments instead.
What types of hashtags to use
Instagram hashtags come in all shapes and sizes. It’s usually best to include a mix of different types every time you post.
Some of the most common categories include …
- Brand Name: These are unique to your business and may appear on every post you create. Example: #DIYSocialAds
- Industry: This hashtag type describes your field and may be incredibly popular if you’re part of a large industry. Example: #Construction
- Niche: When you want to narrow down your topic or provide more context, use a niche hashtag to explain your business or product. Example: #Carpentary
- Location: If your business serves a certain city or region, include a location-focused hashtag. Example: #NYCBuilder
- Event: When you post about an in-person happening or an online event, use an event hashtag to connect with other attendees. Example: #DIYEvent
- Contest: If you want Instagram users to join your giveaway or participate in your campaign, use a unique hashtag for easier tracking. Example: #DIYSOCIALCONTEST
- Descriptive: In case you want to increase your brand reach and improve discovery, add descriptive hashtags. Example: #Freestuff
Although you can use selected hashtags repeatedly, but avoid cut and paste the same list into every single post. Publishing repetitive content goes against Instagram’s guidelines and can cause your reach to decline and will cause more damage than good.
Use relevant and specific hashtags
Do not use more hashtags rather use relevant and specific hashtags. When you want to increase followers reach to more people, you might be tempted to add as many hashtags as possible even if they don’t really apply to your post. This approach can backfire.
Adding irrelevant hashtags won’t gain you new fans or more engagement and your post bounce rate will be higher. Users who use hashtag search feature will not find the relevant content and consider your content as a spam.
How to Create an Instagram Hashtag Strategy
Develop a workflow that can save you time and help you achieve your goals. Follow these steps to streamline hashtag creation process and reach your goals.
- Use of tool: You can use free Instagram feature rather investing in third-party platforms. But you need a tool to create a reliable hashtag strategy. We recommend using Instagram to do research for hashtag.
- Find trending hashtags: See how popular hashtags are at the moment and get ideas for better ones.
- Find influencers: Use Instagram’s Explore tab to find influencers in your industry. Check some of their posts and do research to find related potential hashtags.
- Keep an eye on competitors: Check your competitor’s posts occasionally and making note of interesting hashtags is a good strategy. Update your created hashtags list occasionally.
- Search for UGC : Monitor hashtags that are relevant to your industry and search them on instagram to see inside the post which are in trend and use those related hashtags accordingly.
Word of Caution- For brands and influencers:
When working with brands, influencers have to disclose it to their audiences that a piece of content is sponsored. It’s the law — the FTC (Federal Trade Commissions) released detailed advertising disclosure guidelines for online influencers in 2019. Failure to comply can result in high fines for both the influencer and the brand.
Therefore, for influencers, they should always add hashtags clearly indicating a sponsorship to branded posts.
While brands must make sure that their followers (you) look for such hashtags when reviewing and accepting influencer content.
Hashtags for Facebook:
Hashtags are used on Facebook to mark keywords or topics in a post. This helps people find the posts relevant to them and also helps in ranking posts.
Hashtags can be added to the beginning of a post, in the middle, or at the end. The position matters as it helps in search.
Using hashtags on Facebook is pretty simple. As soon as you start typing something into the status box, the site will try to offer you some popular hashtags. If you see the one which fits your post, click on it and add it.
Hashtags on Facebook can help you add more information and context to your status updates. They’re also a way to help users find other people’s posts who have similar interests or are facing similar challenges.
Hashtags for Twitter:
Twitter is a great platform for sharing content and connecting with other users. While you can follow users, hashtags are the best way to find relevant content that you might not have otherwise seen. There are a few reasons you might use hashtags on Twitter, but they boil down to one thing: making your tweets more visible.
To learn more about Twitter hashtags, go to this link.
Hashtags that become very popular become trending topics. To find more about those trending topics click the link.
6 ways to find the best hashtags
Nothing’s worse than posting a great piece of content and seeing zero engagement. Hashtags are the solution to this problem for most people. The trick, however, is finding the right ones to use.
{{{You}}} may have heard some tips about hashtags that aren’t actually true. Like these:
“Skip the hashtags, they don’t help.” Not only can they help you get more views, they can also help you build an audience over time. Just check out any viral Twitter post and you’ll see what I mean.
“Hashtags are only for Twitter.” That’s a myth you should forget immediately. Hashtags can be used on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, as well as Twitter and they, ‘re very effective on all of these platforms.
“No one will ever search for your hashtag.” If you’re not getting views from your hashtags, it’s possible that your audience just isn’t searching for them yet. But once something gains traction, people start searching for it.
Hashtags are one of the best ways to get your content in front of new people, but choosing which ones to use can be confusing. There are millions of them, and they can be a little hard to find.
Trying to figure out how to use hashtags can feel like a game of chance — you post something, add a hashtag or two, and hope for the best. But that’s no way to take advantage of this awesome marketing opportunity.
You want your posts to reach the most people possible, and hashtags will help you do that if you know where to look for them. Here are six places where you’re likely to find hashtags that will work for you:
1. Your own network
2. Events
3. Competitors’ profiles
4. Blogs and podcasts
5. Hashtag directories
6. Fan accounts
One piece of advice here is to use a specific social media channel to find out what is the best hashtag on that channel. For example, a trending hashtag on LinkedIn may be different than on Instagram or Twitter.
