When you’re promoting your brand on Instagram, using hashtags is one of the most effective ways to garner and drive reactions, likes, comments, and shares. It helps make your posts discoverable, allowing you to reach your target audience quickly.
However, it comes with a simple condition—you need to use your hashtags in a smart way to categorize and present your content to relevant users. Failure to use them correctly may ruin your marketing strategy and Instagram’s algorithm may not work in your favor.
If this concerns you a lot, you may consider using hashtag discovery tools. Since there are many of them in the market, you may narrow your options to those with valuable reviews. You may consider feedback from your local providers or check out this Flick review to learn more about how they work and how they can help improve your hashtag game.
Depending on tools alone may not be enough, though. You also need to know how to use them properly so that your content will garner more views and positive engagements. Here are some of the most effective ways that could help you take your hashtags to a whole new level:
Use Hashtag Generators
Hashtag generators are smart tools to help you find the most popular topics, research them, and generate hashtags based on their analysis. With this, you’ll be able to engage in relevant conversations that may improve the performance of your content based on certain discussions.
In addition, hashtag generators may help you prevent reusing some of the most popular hashtags many people use in all kinds of conversation, such as #love, #food, #music, #photography, and #fitness. By doing so, your posts will have limited visibility against high-demand content.
While you may still use them, it’d be best to partner them with niche-based hashtags with a substantial following count. Generators use algorithms that find relevant engagement based on the niche attached to your content.
Furthermore, hashtag generators are one of the most cost-effective ways to boost your reach in a short period. Thus, saving you a lot of time and money you can use for more crucial processes.
Utilize The Right Amount Of Hashtags
Instagram allows you to include 30 hashtags per content and 10 hashtags per story. If you try to include more than the given limit, it will not let you post your content or caption.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that you should reach that limit for better performance and results. It’s advisable to start at 11 hashtags, but people use around three hashtags in most cases.
Further, according to Instagram, the rule of thumb is to use hashtags of no more than 15. You can add more, but you can place them in the comment section instead. Overall, the point is never to try to reach the maximum limit. Otherwise, your content may not be discoverable to most people, especially your target audience.
Use The Right Hashtags
Finding the right hashtags is important for a successful Instagram marketing strategy to generate more views and establish brand authority. Here are some tips that’ll help find the right hashtags:
- Learn From Instagram’s Top Influencers
Influencers know how to play Instagram’s hashtag gaming to boost their popularity to reach more people. It’d be best if you check out how they use their hashtags when they publish their content. Once you know how they work, you can copy their strategy and see if it works on your command.
Additionally, make sure that the influencer you’re studying is relevant to your niche. You don’t want to look for influencers whose content is about beauty products for your food business simply because it won’t make sense.
- Take A Page Off Of Your Competitors’ Playbook
If you’re a new player in the game, one of the best things you can do is analyze your competitors. When you search for competitors, consider those who have been in the market for so long. They would probably have great content with high engagements.
Look for their content with a reasonable number of likes, comments, and shares. Then, see how they use hashtags in the specific content. You can use their strategy to gain more views and audiences. With this strategy, you might attract the followers of your competitors and make them yours.
Plus, don’t underestimate your small-time competitors. It doesn’t matter if they have a small number of followers as long as they can engage well with most of them. And that’s what you want to do.
- Take Note Of Trending Hashtags
A trending hashtag is a good thing to incorporate into your posts. Yet it may not help you if it’s not related to your chosen niche and the discussion you want to begin. So, before using them, you want to make sure that they are good for your brand image and speak your message.
On the other hand, why don’t you make your own viral hashtags and start a unique conversation? If you do, make sure that it’s unique, catchy, and relevant to your content.
- Use Hashtags With Considerable Volume
If you want to find the right hashtags, you must consider their volume. Using a hashtag that has been used over a million times will make your content like a needle in a haystack. Your target audience probably won’t find it.
What’s more, it’s not wise to use hashtags with a volume of less than a thousand since almost no one would probably search for them. With that said, you want to use hashtags with a volume ranging from tens of thousands which indicates that they’re highly popular and visible.
Keep Your Hashtags Simple
If you want people to remember your hashtags, you need to keep them simple and short yet meaningful and relevant to your brand. Also, it would be easy for most people to understand and read them at a glance. So, try to avoid lengthy hashtags as much as possible. Plus, it’d be best to keep your hashtags within 15 characters.
Be Specific
When you use a hashtag, try to avoid using general terms whenever possible. It’ll not help you reach more views since most of them are attached to content not relevant to your niche.
For example, #food talks more about desserts, so it’s not wise to use it for your business is all about cooked meats. Instead, you may use #roastlegoflamb to specify your content and reach people who engage in related hashtags.
Follow Hashtags
In Instagram, hashtags may somehow function like an account. They can be followed just like a real account, and when you do, they’ll show up on your feed together with other accounts you keep an eye on.
This is a great strategy because it allows you to keep others, especially your competitors, in check. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t do this on branded hashtags because there’s no guarantee that they will appear the same way as regular hashtags.
Make Use Of Branded Hashtags
Using branded hashtags is one way to effectively spread your name throughout Instagram and other shared platforms. Once you create your own, you want to make sure to use it on every relevant content.
Here are other benefits of using branded hashtags:
- Organic Discovery – It helps content to become more discoverable organically.
- Boost Traffic – Since your content is now discoverable, traffic may gradually increase much higher than before.
- Cross Networking – Branded hashtags help you establish cross-channel promotions effectively.
Final Words
Hashtags are one of the most important elements of an Instagram marketing strategy. They can help your content gain more views and reach your target market as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, this is only possible if you know how to use them properly.
If you’re planning to use hashtags but don’t know where to start, you may use tools like hashtag generators to identify which hashtags would fit your content. Consider the number of hashtags you need to use too and keep it simple and specific.
Remember that you may also use trending hashtags, but make sure you only use them when they’re relevant to your content.
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