Putting Together the Puzzle of Instagram Hashtags

Instagram hashtags…Whether you love or hate they are essential for growth in followers and engagement for your Instagram account. 


In this ultimate template to Instagram hashtags we will lay the framework for your success by discussing:


  1. Why hashtags work?
  2. Why using them correctly is so important to your Instagram success?


Why Instagram hashtags are so important?


The main goal with using Instagram for your business is to get more eyeballs, right? Using targeted hashtags is the number one way to get discovered by NEW audiences on the social platform. You want to focus on keeping your current followers, but actively reach out to new customers to connect with your business. 


Each hashtag is basically a built-in directory for all photos and videos that used that same hashtag. For example, if you are interested in travel. You can search #travel and all the photos or videos that used that hashtag will be combined into one page. 


This is a popular hashtag, so there are MILLIONS of photos/videos. You will see them listed in the order of highest engagement. Since hashtags are used to help discover content, the right hashtag can put you in front of your target audience. 


Some key points to using hashtags:

·         Only PUBLIC accounts will show up in the hashtag directory. 

·         You can only use up to 30 hashtags per post

·         You can only add hashtags to your posts

·         No spaces or special characters allowed in hashtags

·         There is no gain to use shorter hashtags than longer ones


Why using hashtags correctly is so important to your Instagram success?

We just used the hashtag #travel above where millions of photos/videos pop up under the directory. So, how do they pick what order they show up in? This is extremely important that you understand the algorithm Instagram uses, so you can set yourself up to utilize the most eyeballs with each post. 


Top Posts

When you click on a specific hashtag like travel, you see Instagram has them listed as top posts. The top content is the posts that get the most engagement overall. The key to getting more engagement is by getting more eyeballs, but you need to get in the top posts to get more eyeballs. There is a equation to help even the smallest accounts that don’t get as much engagement to reach the top posts under certain hashtags. This is where your strategy comes into play. 


If you are a company trying to reach a certain group of people branded hashtags will be very important. You want different hashtags that branch out from the main goal your business wants to achieve. So, if you are a travel blogger you want to make sure you have different hashtags that highlight different parts of travel. 


Examples:

Photography, food, drinks, vacation, beach, travelgram, etc.

Once you have the list of subcategories that you want your vision to reach, then you must try to set yourself up for success getting into the top nine posts on hashtags.  AKA the most eyeballs

You get 30 hashtags, so you don’t want 30 of the most popular hashtags with millions of content in the directory.


The odds of you being listed in the Top 9 post will be very slim. So, you want to split up your hashtags to low competition, medium competition and high competition. There are several programs you can use to research what level of competition your hashtag falls under. 

My company uses Flick and it does a great job breaking down and giving you ideas for which hashtag to use for each competition level. 


Do you use the same hashtags for each post?

Finding the perfect hashtags can be time consuming, but you can make it easier on yourself. Put together a list of 5 low hashtags, 10 medium hashtags and 5 high competition hashtags and save this collection of hashtags to use on majority of posts. 


Then create a group of 10 unique hashtags for each post that puts your brand in different directories every single time. 

Keep up with the insights of the hashtags, so you can use the ones that work best for your brand. I change up the hashtags every couple of weeks based on what is working and what is not. 


Rule of thumb—use a hashtag as often as you can on Instagram even in Instagram stories! 


You might think all those hashtags look ridiculous. You aren’t alone! If this is something that bothers you and you think it looks like spam. You can some of your hashtags in the body of the post and then put the rest of your hashtags in the first comment. It will still have the same result without the look of all the hashtags in one spot. It just depends on what you or your business prefers. 


Either way, using Instagram hashtags is a indispensable way to connect with customers, find content and build relationships with influential brand partners. 


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