Believe it or not, hashtags are quintessential for growing your profile on Instagram. Instagram is now the best platform for branded content, it has surpassed Facebook and Twitter in such aspects. To have an Instagram profile that caters to your relevant audience you need to use hashtags. In fact, there are businesses that have gone onto generate quality leads only by tapping into the hashtag opportunity that Instagram immaculately maintains.
Before we learn how to use hashtags in the proper manner we must know why they’re so highly regarded.
- Hashtags make sure your content becomes easily visible. When you use hashtags on a post/story the content is automatically included in those specific hashtag pages. Meaning users searching for those hashtags can easily get your content.
- Moving on, since hashtags narrow down to who you want your content to be visible, it encourages audience engagement which helps your profile rank higher in relevancy in the Instagram algorithm.
- Lastly, it cues your business on the industry trends so you know what to deliver and who’s delivering what type of content.
Now that you know why hashtags are important here’s a few smart ways to use hashtags for growth and organic reach:
1.Use industry-specific hashtags:
Let’s say yours is a web development agency and you’re using the #instagood because it has over a million public posts. You’re hoping it’ll do the job for you. No, it won’t. However, popular a hashtag may be the best practice is to use industry-specific ones. Use hashtags that your customers might search for when they think of the type of service you provide. It helps your content pop-up on screens that have an actual use for your content.
2.Vary across content:
Only smart Instagram marketers use hashtags according to the type and message of the content they are sharing. To put it into perspective, if you are publishing content that is focused on SEO but using hashtags related to eCommerce, it is safe to say your content is missing its mark. Varying hashtags also adds to the benefit that your profile will be grouped along diverse groups giving your profile better exposure.
3.Mix it up:
Instagram will always show how many posts a certain hashtag has. The obvious choice is to go for the ones which have a lot. Well, that’s not how you do it. The optimal number of hashtags one should use in your content is 11-15.
Here’s how you choose your hashtag squad:
- Select 2-4 popular hashtags that have around 300k to 1 million public posts.
- Select 5-6 moderately popular hashtags that have around 80k to 300k public posts.
- Select 3-5 niche-specific, extremely targetted hashtags depending on your audience. Keep in mind these are the hashtags your customers are likely to type in their search bar.
- Include 1-2 branded hashtags for the uniqueness of your brand.
*TIP: You can always comment on other relevant hashtags in the first comment on your post. This will have a similar effect. It’s wise to use the relevant ones in your caption.
4.Branded hashtags:
Develop hashtags that are unique to your brand and that carry your brand’s essence. Use these hashtags in your posts and remember to always use them in your story. The Instagram story allows 10 hashtags with 1 clickable hashtag sticker. This is where branded hashtags work the best. Also, use branded hashtags to run user-generated campaigns or giveaways.
Here, #redbullracing is a branded hashtag only used by the red bull f1 team.
5.The festive hashtags are for everyone:
This is a bandwagon you clearly should jump on. Festive hashtags like those for Christmas, Eid, May Day, etc give a brand an amazing opportunity for both content creation and coming in the sight of users. These hashtags are short-lived but their popularity almost always ensures your content gets a good chunk of impressions just from hashtags.
