How to use hashtags on Instagram effectively

This article will teach you how to properly utilize Instagram hashtags and demonstrate how doing so can help you increase the visibility and growth of your profile.

Instagram hashtags are what industry professionals refer to as "organic reach boosters," and they can make or break a marketing effort. Your material will reach the ideal audience and draw potential followers and customers if you properly utilize their strength.

However, if you integrate the incorrect ones, you risk losing potential followers and angering Instagram's algorithm. In order to use hashtags successfully, you must understand how they operate and what purpose they serve in a social media marketing strategy.

Fortunately, you may get assistance with that from this thorough tutorial. You can learn everything there is to know about Instagram hashtags right here, including their types and where to position them for maximum visibility. Let's start straight away, shall we?

What are Instagram Hashtags?

A phrase, word, or string of characters with the "#" symbol before it is an Instagram hashtag. They primarily serve to categorize the information and make it easier for the appropriate audience to find. For instance, the Instagram algorithm will make sure that your post reaches the individuals who are interested in the hashtag #blacklivesmatter if you embed it in your post.

Additionally, Instagram hashtags are clickable; for example, if you click #instagood, all posts that have used this hashtag will be displayed. Users of the platform can also follow hashtags to get the most recent articles on topics of interest.

Why Use Hashtags on Instagram?

Instagram hashtags are essential for growing your network and maximizing the organic reach of your post. You can make sure that your posts, stories, and reels are seen by your target audience by using pertinent hashtags in them. Take this as an example.

Let's say you manage a gym or are a fitness influencer with a modest business selling t-shirts. Now, if you include pertinent hashtags in your posts, they will eventually show up in the feeds of those who are interested in fitness or t-shirts. More exposure and potential customers are a result for you!

Since users can follow them to see the most recent material, hashtags on Instagram are also excellent for fostering community. As a result, if someone follows your hashtag, all of the posts that contain that tag will appear in his feed.

In conclusion, hashtags on Instagram are a good idea because they can:

• increase content reach
  widen your social network
  Create community
  Creating an internet presence

Instagram's Most Popular Hashtags

The hashtags listed below are pretty much always popular on the platform.

• #love
• #instagood
• #fashion
• #photooftheday
• #beautiful
• #art
• #photography
• #happy
• #picoftheday
• #cute
• #follow
• #tbt
• #followme
• #nature
• #like4like
• #travel
• #instagram
• #style
• #repost
• #summer
• #instadaily
• #selfie
• #me
• #friends
• #fitness

Though they might be the most often used, keep in mind that they might not be appropriate for your postings. Imagine including the hashtag "fashion" in your fitness posts. Neither would be appropriate, nor would the intended audience be reached. The finest technique to ensure that specialist hashtags get seen by interested users and aid in the accomplishment of your objectives is to integrate them into your postings.

Instagram hashtag categories

Based on how they are used, Instagram hashtags are categorized into basic groups. Here is a quick description of some types.

1. Industry hashtags
Use these hashtags to demonstrate your connection to a certain industry. For instance, if you work as a wedding planner, your account should use the hashtags #weddingideas, #instagwedding, etc.

2. Specialty hashtags
More precise niche hashtags are related to the subcategory of your main industry. The wedding sector, for instance, was the primary industry in the prior example, but this time you need to be more specific about your specialization. like #weddingcake, #weddingphotography, etc.

3. Logo Hashtags
A business owner creates a branded hashtag to directly promote his brand. For instance, well-known firms like Coca-Cola and Zara employ the hashtags #ShareACoke and #Zarabeauty, respectively, to engage consumers and market their products.

4. Local Hashtags
Your affiliation with a specific social movement, public class, or ideology is defined by community hashtags. They often use the hashtags "feminist," "supermom," "marxist," etc. as examples.

5. Characteristic Hashtags
These hashtags are designed to sum up the essential elements of your article and elicit a certain reaction from the audience. When you use a hashtag, such as #beautiful, the reader may unconsciously link your post to the word "beauty" and be drawn to it. Other notable examples of it are "cute," "aesthetic," "fun," etc.

6. Geographic hashtags
These hashtags are meant to share your location with the audience, as their name implies. Examples include #bakesandcakesnewjersy and #portlandcraftgin.

The Best Hashtags for Your Post: Where to Find Them?

As of now, it has been determined that incorporating relevant and popular hashtags is essential for using Instagram hashtags effectively. But how exactly do you find them is now the question. Here are a few techniques you can employ to discover the right and pertinent hashtags for your Instagram posts.

1. Use the Explore Page on Instagram.
You may view all of the most popular Instagram posts related to your niche and the subjects you pay close attention to on the Explore page. Now, this makes it the ideal location for carrying out a tag search.

Simply click on the posts that have received the most likes and attention and note the tags. Later, include the ones that are most pertinent in your posts so that people can find them on Instagram's explore page.

2. Examine Your Rivals and Influencers

Keep an eye out for the hashtags that influencers and your rivals are utilizing to draw in followers. You can discover new hashtags and learn where you are lacking by doing so. You can create a countermarketing campaign to draw the audience to your account using the competitor information as well.

3. Use brand-specific hashtags.

To increase the exposure and fan base of your company or account, use a custom hashtag. It's a fantastic opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition and build your own unique personality. To inform the audience, just create a branded hashtag and include it in your posts and account bio.

The following step is to create some buzz about your hashtag. To do that, you can host competitions, online events, or giveaways and encourage people to use the branded hashtag to contact you. Follow your own hashtag to keep track of activity and determine whether it is successful or not.

4. Determine Your Audience

Observe your audience closely to find out which hashtags they are currently utilizing. By doing this, you'll be able to determine the audience's interests and discover the top hashtags that they use most frequently. Now, this does not imply that you must search through tens of thousands of accounts for hashtags.

Simply review the most recent posts made by your top followers and make a list of the hashtags that are relevant to your topic. Utilize them in future posts to precisely target the audience.

5. Adhere to hashtags

In order to stay current and keep an eye on the newest tags, follow the hashtags that are most used in your field. You'll be able to learn new hashtags as well as new content ideas thanks to this. Simply click on the hashtag to access the page, then click the blue "Follow" button to start following that hashtag.

How Many Hashtags Are Allowed?

Up to 30 hashtags can be included in posts on Instagram, and ten hashtags can be embedded in stories. If you go over this limit, the platform won't let you post the content. Nevertheless, having this freedom does not obligate you to use it up to the last last digit. It means that the 1–3 hashtags that are most pertinent to your content should be embedded, according to experts.

Additionally, some claim that using 11 hashtags will increase engagement. What then is the perfect number? The truth is that there isn't one, actually. To decide whether to use a hashtag or not, you can narrow down the top hashtags and test each one out. You'll get a very decent notion of which hashtags are effective for your account by doing this.

Where and How to Use Hashtags on Instagram?

It is time to learn how to properly incorporate hashtags now that we have shown how to find the best ones. Here are some guidelines for using hashtags effectively in Instagram content for increased visibility and interaction.

1. Use hashtags in captions, for starters

A caption serves as a summary of the information in your Instagram post or clip and is essential to elaborating on the concept. To highlight the keywords and pique the interest of the audience, don't forget to include hashtags in the first line of a caption.

Because Instagram hides the remainder of the caption after 125 characters, including them in the first line is crucial. Make sure to only include tags in your embedding that are pertinent to your brand and accurately describe the material. Your posts and videos will be found by the intended audience in this fashion, resulting in increased exposure and engagement.

2. Applying hashtags to comments

Additionally, experts advise placing your primary hashtag in the first remark of a post or video. It has the same beneficial outcomes as adding tags to the caption, therefore it is similar to that. Many veterans, however, favor it since comments increase exposure quickly because audience members notice them more frequently.

Additionally, the caption is limited to 150 characters, so you must be careful when include hashtags. However, you can go all out in the comments and include a number of hashtags in numerous remarks. Therefore, don't forget to include your primary hashtag—preferably a branded one—in the first comment so that others can follow it and see your most recent postings.

3. Incorporate Hashtags in Stories

According to studies, Instagram users prefer to watch stories to learn the latest information about the companies or influencers they follow. Therefore, it's crucial that you use hashtags in your tales so that they increase the total engagement rate. There are currently two ways to include hashtags in an article.

You may also use a hashtag sticker, which is more aesthetically pleasing. Or you may just use the text tool to type the hashtag. Whatever route you take, make sure you use the appropriate hashtags and increase story views to reach the widest possible audience.

4. Do Hashtags Work on Account Profiles?

Yes! It works to add hashtags to your Instagram profile. You see, the algorithm places your account in a specific category when you include a big hashtag in your bio.

For instance, if you include "#Marxist" in your bio, the majority of your posts will show up on the hashtag page the next time someone clicks on it. Therefore, including hashtags in your profile will increase your account's visibility and exposure, which is what you should aim for.

5. Steer clear of prohibited hashtags

The hashtags that are banned are the ones that are linked to offensive content or encourage bad behavior. Therefore, the Instagram algorithm stops showing the stories that contain them in order to safeguard the community. Inclusion of prohibited hashtags may result in a decline in engagement, a reduction in searchability, and reduced exposure.

As a result, refrain from utilizing them and double-check that none of your tags are prohibited before using them. Additionally, stay away from hashtags like #follow4follow, #like4like, #tags4like, etc. that are desperate or spammy. They have a significant negative impact on your trustworthiness and convey to the audience that you only care about numbers, which is negative publicity that you don't want.

6. Refrain from Using Repetitive and Pointless Hashtags

According to the Instagram community standards, using pointless or repeating hashtags is a significant infraction. When you use the same set of hashtags across all of your posts, the algorithm will start to push your material to the rear. Your account's exposure and reach will consequently suffer greatly.

If you continue to use pointless hashtags in your postings, the same thing will take place. The algorithm will be fooled by them, and the incorrect audience will see your material. Therefore, do comprehensive study before using a hashtag and refrain from repeatedly using ones that are pointless or redundant.

Investigate Your Hashtags

You still have to keep track of the hashtags' performance after successfully integrating them. To determine if your hashtags are garnering impressions and interaction or simply taking up space, you must analyze them. It enables you to spot ineffective tags and swap them out for more promising ones.

Now that you have an Instagram company profile, you can quickly evaluate the hashtags using insight. This is how it goes.

Step 1: Select a post and tap on the “View Insights” banner at its bottom.

Step 2: The insights page will open, and you will see a list of stats there. Swipe up, and you’ll reach the “Discovery” section.

Step 3: Now, notice the “From Hashtags” subheading to see whether your hashtags are increasing reach or not.

If the statistics are good, everything is well; if not, create hashtags that are better than the ones that were used previously and embed them.

How Can Instagram Hashtags Be Hidden?

Instagram hashtags undoubtedly increase the audience for content, but, let's be honest, they don't exactly seem attractive. A single line containing two or three hashtags might occasionally ruin the tone of the article as a whole. Fortunately, you can conceal the hashtags to preserve the aesthetic integrity of a post. Here's how to go about it.

1. Making captions on Instagram without hashtags

• When finished, hit enter or return on a mobile device (for pc).
  Tap the return key repeatedly to skip at least five to six lines.
  Put your hashtags on the seventh or eighth line after you cease reading the original caption text.

The audience won't see the hashtags unless they clicked on the "More" button on Instagram, which only displays the first two lines of a caption.

2. Hiding Stories' Hashtags

You may conceal hashtags in Instagram stories in a variety of ways.

• Making hashtags smaller on stories makes it simple to hide them. To reduce a hashtag, simply pinch it and bring your fingers closer together.
  Put a sticker or an emoji on top of it.
  To transform the hashtag sticker's white background to a semi-transparent one, tap on it. After that, it would be difficult to see if it were to get smaller.

3. Making Hashtags Invisible in Comments

After publishing the text, add hashtags to your comment. Now, unless they choose to view all comments, mobile users won't be able to see your comment, effectively hiding it.

Desktop users, however, will be able to see it right away in the comment box. However, it's not really a problem because the majority of Instagram users access the service through their mobile devices.

Conclusion

Follow the three recommended practices we discussed today to get the most out of Instagram hashtags.

• Pick your hashtags wisely.
  embed them truthfully
  regularly examine them

These are the main takeaways, however there is obviously much more to it than these three aspects. Use them intelligently to create a brilliant marketing plan, improve your internet visibility, and expand your account. How will you use hashtags on Instagram? Please share your thoughts in the comments area or connect with us on social media. 

Written by Socoid team