HASHTAGS: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
Instagram hashtags can make or break your marketing strategy. You are probably wondering what all the rave is about and why everyone in the online community keeps talking about them. Well, if you use them correctly, you can actually get more eyes on your brand or product! However, if you don’t know how to use them, it can often do more harm than good. Hashtags are an important part of bringing in more followers, building a community around your business, and boosting your engagement rate.
You might know a bit about hashtags if you’ve done a little research already. Hashtags are versatile, have the power to represent social movements, and make it user-friendly to search any category. They are essentially used to categorize specific content and make it more discoverable. You can use hashtags to target a specific demographic, establish your brand identity, make a statement, and more -- the list is endless.
Hashtags are used daily by almost everyone from celebrities to small business owners to multinational corporations, which is why it’s important to really understand how to effectively incorporate hashtags into your social media strategy to expand your audience on Instagram.
Do’s:
Use all 30 hashtags. Instagram allows 30 hashtags in each post, so don’t make the mistake of skipping this step. It’s often glazed over, but if you want to use hashtags as a tool in your strategy, then it’s recommended to use them all. Make sure each hashtag relates to each individual caption, so that you’re not copying and pasting the same hashtag set for each post.
Use niche-specific hashtags. It’s important to research the right hashtags to ensure your brand is attracting the most targeted audience possible. This is where you have to think about what your ideal client or customer would be searching for, and be specific with your product or service. You want to target the different subsets within your industry and focus on being intentional rather than adding random hashtags. Doing so can effectively bring more people directly to your post.
Add big and small hashtags. You want more people to see your content, so it is important that you build a foundation in your marketing strategy by working your way up. For example, use about 10 smaller hashtags that have less than 15,000 posts, 10 bigger hashtags that are over 500,000, and the rest can follow in-between. If you are a interior designer, using hashtags like #kitchendecorideas is a great choice for a photo or video of a kitchen space because it has 29.7k posts. It’s a popular search and it’s not too big of a hashtag. As you start to progress, you can begin to add more viral hashtags.
Track your hashtags. You want to track the success of your hashtags so that you have a better understanding of which ones are working and which ones aren’t. Not all will be effective, and some can even be damaging. That is why it is important to regularly keep up with how your hashtags are performing. There are a few different ways to do this:
Check directly through Instagram by using the feature “Post Insights,” that all business accounts have access to. This is where you can track all your valuable analytics such as your reach, impressions and clicks. Within each post you are able to see how many people you were able to reach.
Use a third-party app. There are a few different apps that will automatically show you your post analytics all in one area. A few popular ones are Later, Sprouts Social, Flick and Hashtagify.
Don'ts:
Using under 30 hashtags. You do not want to miss out on every opportunity for growth -- including hashtag strategy. Using this free method to gain more exposure ultimately brings more people directly to your content.
Do not use irrelevant hashtags. Be sure to steer clear of adding hashtags that do not relate to the specific post and caption. For example, using hashtags like #love or #selfie on a photo of a palm tree is irrelevant. Avoid copying and pasting the same hashtags on every post. Instagram’s algorithm may catch it and consider your account spam.
While it’s clear that using hashtags can have many benefits to your business, it is important that there is intent behind your strategy. Be sure to be strategic about which hashtags you select to represent your brand and make sure your hashtags align with the brand identity you want to reflect. Hashtag strategy can be a powerful tool when used correctly by maximizing your potential exposure. So be sure to use hashtags -- but only intentionally with strategy and research behind them.