In this blog post, you’ll discover a complete guide to using hashtags strategically across Instagram feed posts, story posts, reels, and IGTV posts. You’ll learn how to choose your hashtags, how many to use, and where to put them in your posts for best results…You’re welcome💋.
Hashtags are important. Period. There’s no argument there.
Backup!! Do you know what a Hashtag is? You know that pound sign (#), that you are seeing all over social media with words at the end or phrases…that my friend is a hashtag!
Think of a hashtag as a searchable term…imagine the whole world is covered in Tupperware and each piece of Tupperware is labeled with a hashtag (which could be ANYTHING). Any piece of public content that has that hashtag attached to it will be found in its associated Tupperware (make sense?).
But, why are they important? Why’s everyone in the social media marketing world going nuts over them?
Bottom line – Hashtags on Instagram work:
- A post with at least one Instagram hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than a post without any.
- Other research goes as far as to say that posts with hashtags result in a 70.4% increase in likes compared to those without hashtags.
Hashtags play a vital role in turning a 100-followers profile into a 10k+ followers profile (If you stay consistent); after all, almost 70% of Instagram posts go unseen. It’s the difference between wasting your time on Instagram trying to get a bit of engagement and reach to getting instafamous and rolling in green dollar bills. Just adding one hashtag to your post can increase your engagement by 12.6% more.
So you can’t just slap a few hashtags (compiled from here and there) to your post as an afterthought. You need to research, compile, and then test hashtags repeatedly for stellar results. If you do not see a whole lotta difference in your hashtagged vs non-hashtagged posts, then your entire IG hashtag strategy is flawed.
And you need to change that STAT!
Here’s how. (Thank me later)
How to choose your hashtags
- Choose three to five popular hashtags. Popular hashtags have around 300,000 to 1 million posts for a specific hashtag. Anything more than 1 million generally is irrelevant to you because it’s so saturated with content that the only thing you’ll attract are spambots. And you don’t want that.
- Select three to five moderately popular hashtags. These are the hashtags that fall in the 80,000–300,000 range.
- Pick three to five niche-specific hashtags. These are super-targeted specifically to your industry, what you do, the solution you provide, and what your customer is looking for.
- Include one or two of your *branded hashtags.
If you follow this formula, you’ll be stirring🥄 that sauce of yours to perfection.
Spicy Tip🌶️ : Need help finding your hashtags? Check out Flick and thank me,l8er!
How many hashtags to use
WELL….Check out my latest blog on this topic to get this tea!
Where to put your hashtags
While adding hashtags to your posts is one of the best ways to boost your engagement and get your posts in front of your target audience, too many hashtags in your captions can look untidy (or worse, spammy!).
Instead, posting your hashtags in the first comment is a great way to make your caption the star of the show without compromising any of the engagement you can get with hashtags.
Where to: Reels
Using hashtags on your Reels works exactly like the other Instagram content you create. That means the same hashtag strategies and similar growth tactics will work on your Reels too.
You have the chance to show up on the Top section of the hashtag page for each one you choose to use. Besides ranking on the hashtags, you want to make sure you’re classifying your content so Instagram will know who to serve it to on the Explore page.
So the answer is YES! You better be using hashtags on your Reels.
Where to: Stories
Did you know you can add hashtags to your Instagram Stories too?
Adding hashtags to your story is a great way to give your content an added chance to be discovered by new and fresh audiences.
When people search for a hashtag on Instagram, if it’s popular enough, they’ll be able to see a collection of tagged stories on the search results page — including yours!
You can add as many as ten hashtags to each Instagram story, including one clickable hashtag sticker.
And if you’re worried about how hashtags will impact a carefully crafted aesthetic, there are a few hashtags hacks to make them seamlessly fit in with your post or be hidden completely.
For example, you can make your text-based hashtags smaller and color match to your background (just ‘pinch’ the text, use the dropper tool) bada bing, bada boom, you’ve hidden your hashtags but optimized your story content.
Okay now you know the Why, How, and Where; let’s discuss my top tips for using hashtags.
1. Search Instagram hashtags before using them
Before you use a hashtag on Instagram, make sure to search it yourself to see who is using it and what kind of content comes up (Trust me…I know from personal experience…if you want to know, let’s get a drink). Just because a famous influencer or brand used it, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for your content.
2. Combine popular IG hashtags with smaller niche hashtags
It’s the eternal dilemma: should you use a popular search term/category/hashtag, which may have a wider reach, but a lot more competition? Or should you use a smaller niche one, which may not appeal to as broad an audience, but is more likely to be seen by people looking for that specific kind of content?
The simple answer: BOTH!
If you are on your personal branding journey, you should also have a branded hashtag unique to your tribe. Niche or location-based hashtags help you stand out to the audience that is most relevant to you. Use a combination of both in every post.
3. Keep a list
There is no need to reinvent the wheel every time you post something on IG. Compile a list of hashtags relevant to your brand. That way, when you create a post, you can use the list and choose appropriate hashtags without conducting exhaustive research all over again. You can also mark on this list how many times you’ve used each hashtag.
*I hate paper…I recommend keeping this record in Notion.
4. A/B Test
This is not a race, and even if it was, remember the turtle won! Varying your hashtags makes it possible to reach a broader and more diverse audience. People searching #travel are not necessarily the same people who search #traveling, but if you’re a travel agency company, it’s a good idea to reach all of them. Using different hashtags in each post lets you the opportunity to try many other hashtags and see which ones get you the most engagement.
Remember that Instagrammers use hashtags to find content that interests and inspires them. By employing these tips and using a variety of relevant hashtags, you’ll help the people most interested in your message find you — and hopefully, become devoted followers and customers😉
Your Homework📚
- Tweak the number of hashtags you use, as well as the placement of your hashtags.
- Research hashtags relevant to your brand & industry.
- Get organized. Keep a list of the hashtags you’re using and plan to use different hashtags for each post (remember to combine popular hashtags with smaller niche hashtags).
- Check your Insights regularly to see how well your hashtag strategy is working. Within your Post Insights, you can see how many Post Impressions came from the hashtags you used.
If you still need help or are on your social media marketing journey and would like to book a discovery call with me to discuss how we can set you up for success!
You’re welcome💋,
Soraya Janae