An important part of any strategy on the Instagram platform is optimizing hashtags and planning them carefully. Hashtags are a great way to display your posts in front of your target audience. Hashtags also work to categorize your content. It is important to note that the best hashtag strategies are not only related to the organic reach of your posts, but also to the type of people you are targeting as well, and they are an incredibly effective way to increase the number of followers when used correctly.
Here are 5 ways to improve hashtags on Instagram.
The ideal number of hashtags to add to a post varies from 3 to 30, with the maximum being 30. It’s always best to give yourself the best possible chance of discovery by using all 30, though keep in mind that all hashtags used should be tailored to your content, business, or target audience. Adding irrelevant hashtags can seriously backfire, as there is an option for users to report your post which could lead to Instagram hiding your content under the irrelevant hashtag, or as it is called shadow banning.
You know the saying: If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Not planning your hashtags and writing them right before publishing is not the best idea. If you want your content to be taken seriously, you should create tag groups of 3-5 groups that relate to each other, and which can be applied to different types of content. We also understand that finding relevant hashtags can be difficult, especially when you need to find 30 unique tags. Here are three ways to find relevant hashtags for your business: Search for
By searching for one hashtag that closely matches your content, for example #digitalmarketing, you can view all the hashtags that are often used alongside it. Review competitors’ hashtags: We’re not saying you should copy and paste your competitors’ hashtags, but we do recommend using successful brands as a case study, where you can review their best-performing posts and what hashtags were used to get some ideas. Explore Page: Instagram’s Explore page displays well-performing content that the algorithm thinks you’ll appreciate, so by filtering the content and choosing a post within the page that’s relevant to your business, you can draw hashtag inspiration from that content.
- The size of the tag used
While having a hashtag it is very important to note the volume of usage for it, the higher the usage of the hashtag the lower the chance of your content being discovered due to the fast nature of posts, for example, the hashtag #Love has been used more than a billion times, with hundreds of new posts being added every minute. Ideally, you should create a mix of hashtag usage volume, so you should follow a guideline of 10 hashtags with a volume between 5,000 – 10,000, another 10 between 10,000 – 50,000 and the final 10 between 50,000 – 500,000.
- Use the story hashtag on Instagram
In addition to News Feed posts, Instagram allows you to add up to 10 hashtags per Story. Since many people follow hashtags and accounts, adding a hashtag to your Stories can be extremely helpful in expanding your reach and introducing you to new audiences. Review and Reports: An important part of any strategy is to devote time to review in order to discover what is working well, and what needs to be modified. Tag statistics tools allow you to do this, as they allow you to see which tags received the most likes versus the least number of likes, where you can improve tag groups and add new tags for testing. Using hashtags on Instagram is a vital and effective way to build a strong and interactive audience, but only if it is used correctly.
