Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags
Are you struggling with getting more Instagram followers through your hashtags? Are your hashtag impressions low and you have tried everything, but seems nothing is helping? If so, keep on reading, because in this blog post I want to share with you main tips on how to use Instagram hashtags and some strategies that you might not have tried before.
In this blog post:
1. Explode your hashtag impressions with this hashtag strategy
2. Where you should put your hashtags
3. How many hashtags to use
4. Hashtag sizes
1. Explode your hashtag impressions with this hashtag strategy
There are 4 steps you need to take in order to optimize and step up your Instagram hashtag game. Pick right hashtags, research them, organize and analyze them.
1). Picking the right hashtags
Picking the right hashtags will help you to target your audience and followers on Instagram. Figuring out the niche and topic related hashtags is easier when you use a certain structure that I teach in my signature course InstaMediaGuru
When picking hashtags make sure that you think from perspective of your potential followers and clients: what kind of hashtags do they use and search for? Don't focus too much on your brand and business and what you do, because people rarely search for what you do or who you are as opposed to what you can offer.
For example if you are a social media coach and you want to target your ideal clients, they most likely will be searching for "social media tips" rather than "social media coach". But your competitors / profiles with similar niche will probably use hashtag "social media coach", so you need to think about who you want to target and what type of audience you want to attract.
2). Researching your hashtags
It is really important that you research every hashtag (unless you are using an app that you can rely on for researched hashtags). Instagram is banning hashtags all the time, so you need to be careful not to use banned hashtags.
Also you need to research hashtags to only use those hashtags that are not too big or small for your Instagram following amount and engagement. You also don't want to use too saturated hashtags - in which your content will be lost and you won't get discovered by new audience. If you want to learn more how to check if a hashtag is too saturated and hashtag mistakes you might be making, make sure to watch my YouTube video after this:
How to grow on Instagram with hashtags
You can research your hashtags on Instagram or other reliable app.
3). Organizing your hashtags
Next step is to organize your hashtags in your phone notes, an app, Excel or Google Sheet. Organize your hashtags by the theme / topic and size. Check out the below short video how I organize my hashtags:
Beat Instagram algorithm with hashtags
4). Analyzing your hashtags
After you have been using your hashtag strategy, analyze how it worked for you. Did you get higher hashtag impressions? Did it get you a better reach? How many followers did you get with this hashtag strategy?
You can analyze your hashtag performance by doing it manually - going to each hashtag few hours after posting to see in which hashtags your post showed up in the first 12 posts on search top posts tab (tags).
You can also use another Instagram approved app or Later (paid version) to analyze your hashtag performance.
2. Where should you put your hashtags?
There are several opinions about this, if you should put the hashtags in the body of the caption or comments. To be honest after researching my hashtags and trying different strategies I have noticed no difference what comes to hashtag placement.
So it is totally up to you. Some people like to insert the hashtags in the first comment and you can definitely do so even if you are scheduling and automating your Instagram posts on app called Later, so you can also automate your first comment if you like to post your hashtags in the comment instead of caption.
The only thing to take into consideration though is that it is better if you post your hashtags at the same time with publishing your post or right after, because if you get a lot of activity on your post right after you have published it and hashtags are not published yet - it will be harder to rank in those hashtags on Instagram search.
3. How many hashtags to use
The biggest Instagram hashtag myth out there is that you can't use all 30 hashtags because Instagram will think it is spam. Now, let's use some common sense - Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags so if it is allowed then it can not be punishable, right?
So in my opinion if Instagram is allowing you to use 30 hashtags - it is 30 chances to show up in different people's feed, you should use all of them to maximize your chances to grow on Instagram. I would suggest using at least 18 hashtags (if you are using 3-6-9 strategy) if you don't want to use all 30 of them.
4. Hashtag sizes
What comes to sizes it is completely up to your follower amount and engagement rate what size hashtags you should be using in your Instagram content. The trick here is to research and analyze your hashtags to see what type of hashtags increase your hashtag impressions (=reach) and bring you new followers. When analyzing your hashtags it is important to take a note of those hashtags in which your Instagram content shows up (on the search tab, Top posts) and use those hashtags and hashtag sizes to increase your hashtag impressions.
But the most important thing is to remember that you shouldn't only focus on hashtags if you want to target the right audience, gain genuine followers and grow on Instagram. Hashtags is only one part of a bigger picture. You also need to remember that finding a right niche and optimizing your Instagram account and content are as equally important.
If you want to learn more about how to find a profitable niche on Instagram make sure to download my Free Guide
And if you want to know how to optimize your Instagram account and content and get discovered by more people on Instagram make sure to download my Free Instagram SEO Guide
Thanks for hanging out with me today!
Want to ask me a question or give me feedback or do you just want to say hello?
DM me on my Instagram. Also I share a lot of tips about Instagram (hashtags, growth, etc), Social Media and Entrepreneurship so make sure you follow me and turn on the post and story notifications to be the first one to implement my strategies!
Sincerely,
Natalia
