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How to come up with hashtags for instagram


8 Tips for Choosing the Right Hashtags for Your Hashtag Aggregator Tool

Hashtags! They're such a seemingly simple thing, but they're vital for helping people find things on social media.

If you are a social media person, you've definitely seen them. Sometimes, posts actually have more hashtags than normal text. Interestingly, they started out as a techy way to organize and start conversations. They've since grown to become the building blocks of social media marketing.

While social media platforms that utilize hashtags actual work as a hashtag aggregator tool by gathering all relevant posts during a search, you can specify your own hashtags to create your own unique social media feed.

Curator.io is an easy-to-customize aggregator that lets you pull from over a dozen sources. If you'd like to give Curator.io's free forever plan a spin sign up today.

Why Hashtags are Important

While hashtags may seem pointless to a novice, the truth is that they are a powerful tool to help you market your business. This is because they can increase your reach, amplify your brand, and get your content to people who need to see it.

In fact, with hashtags, you have one of the easiest ways of expanding your influence beyond your current audience. By using relevant hashtags, people searching for those keywords can easily find your post and updates and might follow your brand.

Hashtags aren't just some simple fad. Instead, they help to drastically increase engagement. That's why businesses focus so much on picking the right hashtags and trying to create their own trending hashtags. HubSpot analyzed popular hashtags on Twitter and found that some of those hashtags led over a 1,000% increase in engagement.

While the original idea to use the # sign to group conversations started with the chat client IRC in the late 1990s (bonus points if you remember using that one), it didn't become trendy until 2007 when Chris Messina suggested using # signs to tag and group conversations. Since then, hashtags have become the best way to help social media users find related content and conversations.

If your brand is using the right hashtags and gathering related content, your customers and followers are going to see you as a leader in your industry.

Now that you know that hashtags are an essential marketing and engagement tool, it's time to take a look at what exactly a hashtag aggregator tool does. Then, we'll let you in on the secrets of picking the right hashtags.

Using a Hashtag Aggregator Tool

A social media network is essentially one massive hashtag aggregator tool. When you use the search function to find a keyword or phrase, the results pull not only phrases from posts, but matching and related hashtags.

However, you want to be a little more specific. For instance, maybe you only want to gather posts with hashtags about wildlife conservation to match your brand's mission to create a more sustainable future. This is where a hashtag aggregator tool can help.

You choose just the hashtags you want (more on how to pick the right hashtags coming right up). Then, the tool pulls just those hashtags from your chosen networks. You embed the feed on your website or even at an event or conference. This increases engagement and helps establish your brand as a go-to source of information.

Remember, you don't always have to be the one posting something new and innovative. Just gathering the conversations together is a great engagement and marketing strategy.

Content aggregated from a branded hashtag or Instagram account to a portfolio page:

Content aggregated from a branded hashtag to pull content posted by multiple accounts into a website footer section:

Curator.io is an easy-to-customize aggregator that lets you pull from over a dozen sources. If you'd like to give Curator.io's free forever plan a spin sign up today.

Choosing the Right Hashtags

Obviously, you've got to choose the right hashtags or you're not going to aggregate the best possible content. So, without further ado, here's how it's done:

1.
Learn from influencers

Influencers play a crucial role when it comes to marketing brands. Therefore, searching for influencers in your niche might be helpful. Through them, you can quickly identify the most successful hashtags relevant to your brand and use them.

If you're struggling to find influeners or aren't sure what type of influencers have the most pull in your industry, consider using Alexa's guide on influencer marketing or Orbit Media Studio's guide to finding influencers.

2. Use social media tools for research

Most social media platforms that use hashtags also provide tools to show you what's currently trending. For instance, when you log in to Twitter, you'll see a list of currently trending hashtags. While that doesn't mean you should use those, if you see something relevant to your campaign or brand, it may be worth checking out.

If nothing else, you may just find other relevant hashtags that work better. You should also look at any social media analytics (within the network's settings). These often list trending hashtags and even hashtags relevent to your brand.

3. Use hashtag aggregators and analytics tools

Before you start using a hashtag aggregator tool, you'll likely want to do some hashtag research to discover the right hashtags. When you can't find what you need through a social media network's tools, opt for third-party tools.

Don't worry about your budget. There are numerous free and low-cost options to discover and monitor hashtags to find what's best for your brand. These help you find hashtags to aggregate and which ones to use for your own posts. A few great lists to get you started include:

  • Influencer Marketing Hub's Free Hashtag Tracking Tools to Monitor Hashtag Performance Online
  • Talkwalker's 15 Free Hashtag Tracking Tools
  • Keyhole's Top 15 Hashtag Analytics Tools

Of course, you can also use your hashtag aggregator tool to help find the right hashtags.

Curator aggregates content from all of the following social media and content platforms:

You can pick a few hashtags that are relevant to your brand and then monitor the posts to see what other hashtags are trending in your niche. Review the quality of the content and decide which hashtags are right for you.

Curator.io even offers a free version to help you find hashtags easily without a major investment.

Curator.io is an easy-to-customize aggregator that lets you pull from over a dozen sources. If you'd like to give Curator.io's free forever plan a spin sign up today.

4. Know your hashtags

Just because a hashtag is popular, it doesn’t mean that it is going to be helpful to you. Sometimes a trending hashtag may not be suitable for your brand image. Therefore before you settle for the hashtag to use, research it to ensure it fits the type of conversation you want.

Such due diligence ensures that whatever hashtag you use is beneficial to your business. Otherwise, you end up supporting inappropriate circumstances or raunchy campaigns that can be harmful to your business.

5. Find a unique hashtag

Start your own conversation and campaign by creating your own unique hashtag. Select a tagline that is catchy, unique, and resonates with your target audience.

While there are numerous hashtags already out there, you can indeed create something unique with a little effort. Just use a third-party hashtag analytics tool or your hashtag aggregation tool to research if a hashtag is already being used.

6. Use clear hashtags

Besides being unique, it is paramount that the hashtag is clear when it comes to the message it relays. It should match the event or campaign you intend to use it in. Don’t let it be vague or ambiguous.

A hashtag that is not very clear on the message it's relaying might end up relaying the wrong message. For example, the case of the Susan Boyle hashtag, where her PR team decided to use the hashtag #susanalbumparty, read it with a dirty mind and you get the importance of a clear hashtag.

To drive the point home, also check this example: #therapist. A simple hashtag, yet it may convey the wrong meaning. What the user really meant was “Therapist,” but it was interpreted by some people as “The Rapist. ” Just make sure your audience understands your hashtag without confusion whatsoever.

Curator.io is an easy-to-customize aggregator that lets you pull from over a dozen sources. If you'd like to give Curator.io's free forever plan a spin sign up today.

7. Keep It short and simple

Remember the simpler it is, the easier it is to understand. Not to mention, the easier it is for others to use. That is why it is advisable to keep your hashtags short and straightforward. Lengthy hashtags tend to be difficult to read. Therefore avoid them as much as possible.

Try to keep your hashtag less than 10 characters. Also, consider using one hashtag for each campaign. For your hashtag to pick up momentum quickly, it should not take much of the audience's time trying to understand it. If it's difficult to understand, many people will end up skipping it.

8. Make sure the hashtag is relevant

The primary reason for using hashtags is to grow your audience reach. Therefore, if your hashtag is not relaying information relevant to your brand, you have already lost the race. The hashtag you use should be able to relate to your services and products.

You cannot just use any popular hashtag. If you are not careful, you may end up promoting somebody else just because you were not diligent enough when choosing your hashtag.

Note that, once you are using a hashtag you should never leave it unattended. This is because a hashtag, whether new or old, might easily take a detour and go in the direction you least expected. Thanks to technology, you can use tools such as Curator.io to monitor your hashtags.

Also, promote your hashtag in order for it to get the traffic it needs. Put it in your products, mention it in your commercials, and get people to use it in their tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook’s posts. Get the word out there to as many people as possible and then let it work for you.

Remember, the success of hashtags is unique to each social media channel, be it Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Therefore you can get better results by customizing your content to suit each channel instead of posting the same content on every network.

Key Takeaways

Hashtags play a significant role in marketing your products and services. When used well, they are a powerful tool that can enable you to increase your market reach and boost your brand. So, if you have not been using hashtags, now it’s your turn to start using them. To reap maximum benefits; ensure you also select the best social media wall solution to help you display your content and engage your audience

Ultimate Guide [+101 hashtags for 2023]

What are Instagram hashtags?

Top Instagram hashtags

Types of popular Instagram hashtags

Instagram Hashtag FAQs

7 tips for how to use hashtags on Instagram

Instagram hashtags can make or break your Instagram marketing strategy. Use them correctly and you’ll get your posts seen by more people likely to be interested in your products or brand.

But use the wrong and you can actually do damage, from annoying potential followers to getting penalized by Instagram’s algorithm.

To use hashtags for Instagram effectively, you need to understand exactly how they work, and put some thought into a strategy.

You’re in the right place to do just that. Watch our video below, or read on!

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a fitness influencer used to grow from 0 to 600,000+ followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

What are Instagram hashtags?

A hashtag is a combination of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by the # symbol (e.g. #NoFilter). They are used to categorize content and make it more discoverable.

Hashtags are clickable. Anyone who clicks on an Instagram hashtag or conducts an Instagram hashtag search will see a page showing all the posts tagged with that hashtag.

Why use Instagram hashtags?

Hashtags are an important way to expand your Instagram audience and get more reach. When you use a hashtag, your post will appear on the page for that hashtag. If you use a hashtag on your Story, it could be included in the relevant hashtag Story, which also appears on the hashtag page.

People can also choose to follow hashtags, which means they could see your hashtagged post in their feed even if they don’t follow you (yet).

Instagram hashtags can be a great way of building community online so people are motivated to engage with your brand. For example, as the way people work out suddenly changed in 2020, Nike Los Angeles used the #playinside hashtag to feature local people getting active in their homes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nike LA (@nikela)

All that being said, times they are a changin’. We recently ran an experiment looking specifically at the effectiveness of Instagram SEO vs Hashtags in 2022. And the results, well let’s just say they were eye-opening.

Check out the article or watch the video below to see what we found:

Top Instagram hashtags

These are the top 50 hashtags on Instagram:

  1. #love (1.835B)
  2. #instagood (1.150B)
  3. #fashion (812.7M)
  4. #photooftheday (797.3M)
  5. #beautiful (661.0M)
  6. #art (649.9M)
  7. #photography (583.1M)
  8. #happy (578.8M)
  9. #picoftheday (570.8M)
  10. #cute (569.1M)
  11. #follow (560.9M)
  12. #tbt (536. 4M)
  13. #followme (528.5M)
  14. #nature (525.7M)
  15. #like4like (515.6M)
  16. #travel (497.3M)
  17. #instagram (482.6M)
  18. #style (472.3M)
  19. #repost (471.4M)
  20. #summer454.2M
  21. #instadaily (444.0M)
  22. #selfie (422.6M)
  23. #me (420.3M)
  24. #friends (396.7M)
  25. #fitness (395.8M)
  26. #girl (393.8M)
  27. #food (391.9M)
  28. #fun (385.6M)
  29. #beauty (382.8M)
  30. #instalike (374.6M)
  31. #smile (364.5M)
  32. #family (357.7M)
  33. #photo (334.6M)
  34. #life (334.5M)
  35. #likeforlike (328.2M)
  36. #music (316.1M)
  37. #ootd (308.2M)
  38. #follow4follow (290.6M)
  39. #makeup (285.3M)
  40. #amazing (277.5M)
  41. #igers (276.5M)
  42. #nofilter (268.9M)
  43. #dog (264.0M)
  44. #model (254.7M)
  45. #sunset (249.8M)
  46. #beach (246.8M)
  47. #instamood (238.1M)
  48. #foodporn (229.4M)
  49. #motivation (229.1M)
  50. #followforfollow (227. 9M)

Popular B2B Hashtags

  1. #business (101M)
  2. #entrepreneur (93M)
  3. #success (82M)
  4. #onlineshop (70M)
  5. #smallbusiness (104M)
  6. #marketing (69M)
  7. #branding (38M)
  8. #marketingdigital (39M)
  9. #innovation (14M)
  10. #ecommerce (12M)
  11. #retail (8.2M)
  12. #onlinemarketing (8M)
  13. #contentmarketing (6.5M)
  14. #marketingtips (6.2M)
  15. #marketingstrategy (6M)
  16. #marketingstrategy (6M)
  17. #startups (5.3M) 
  18. #management (5.1M)
  19. #businesstips (5.1M)
  20. #software (5M)
  21. #B2B (2.6M)
  22. #instagramforbusiness (1. 4M)
  23. #b2bmarketing (528k)
  24. #eventmarketing (408k)
  25. #b2bsales (125k)

Popular B2C Hashtags

  1. #training (133M)
  2. #smallbusiness (104M)
  3. #business (101M)
  4. #sale (95M)
  5. #onlineshopping (85M)
  6. #marketing (69M) 
  7. #marketingdigital (39M)
  8. #promo (35M) 
  9. #socialmedia (32M) 
  10. #digitalmarketing  (25M)
  11. #startup (24M)
  12. #socialmediamarketing (19.7M) 
  13. #sales (19M) 
  14. #advertising (15M) 
  15. #ecommerce (12.3M) 
  16. #networking (12.1M)
  17. #onlinebusiness (11.4M) 
  18. #onlinemarketing (8M) 
  19. #smallbiz (7M) 
  20. #company (7. 9M) 
  21. #startuplife (5.6M) 
  22. #contentmarketing (6.5M) 
  23. #socialmediatips (3.2M)
  24. #marketplace (2.5M)
  25. #b2c (350k)
  26. #b2cmarketing (185k)

Keep in mind that the most popular Instagram hashtags are not necessarily the most effective.

A large number of posts may mean lots of people follow that hashtag, but it also means there’s a ton of content on it and your posts might get lost. Instagram suggests using a combination of popular and niche hashtags to reach different audiences, from broad to specific.

Types of popular Instagram hashtags

Instagram breaks hashtags down into nine distinct types:

Product or service hashtags

These are basic keywords to describe your product or service, like #handbag or #divebar

Niche hashtags

These get a little more specific, showing where you fit in the context of your industry, like #travelblogger or #foodblogger

Industry Instagram community hashtags

Communities exist on Instagram, and these hashtags help you find and join them. Think #gardenersofinstagram or #craftersofinstgram

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Special event or seasonal hashtags

These can refer to real holidays or seasons, like #summerdays, or they can be used for all those National [Thing] Day holidays, like #nationalicecreamday or #nationalnailpolishday

Location hashtags

Even if you geo-tag your Instagram post, it can still be a good idea to include a hashtag that refers to your location, like #vancouvercraftbeer or #londoneats

Daily hashtags

Every day has plenty of its own hashtags, from #MondayBlues right through to #SundayFunday. We created a whole list of daily hashtags for you to choose from if you’re looking for an easy source of hashtags to add to your posts.

Relevant phrase hashtags

These hashtags combine elements of product hashtags, niche hashtags, and community hashtags. Basically, they’re phrases people use on Instagram to connect to existing communities in a slightly insider way, like #amwriting or #shewhowanders

Acronym hashtags

Perhaps the best-known acronym hashtag is #TBT for Throwback Thursday. Other popular acronym hashtags include #OOTD for outfit of the day, #FBF for flashback Friday, and #YOLO for you only live once.

Emoji hashtags

These hashtags can include emojis on their own, like #????, or words or phrases with emojis attached, like #sunglasses????.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cartems Donuts (@cartemsdonuts)

Branded hashtags are another great option for businesses on Instagram. We’ll get into more details on those later in this post.

Instagram Hashtag FAQs

How many hashtags to use on Instagram

How to hide hashtags on Instagram

How to find trending hashtags on Instagram

How to search multiple hashtags on Instagram

How to find the best Instagram hashtags for YOUR brand

How many hashtags to use on Instagram

You can include up to 30 hashtags on a regular post, and up to 10 hashtags on a Story. If you try to include more, your comment or caption won’t post.

That said, just because you can use that many hashtags for Instagram doesn’t mean you should. There’s no right number of hashtags for every business, or even for every post by the same business.

The consensus is that about 11 hashtags is a good number to start with. But the most common number of hashtags to use on Instagram is between 3 and 5.

You’ll need to do some testing to determine what works best for your particular business.

How to hide hashtags on Instagram

When you’ve spent time crafting a great Instagram caption, you may not want to end your post with a prominent collection of hashtags. Fortunately, there are a couple of easy ways to make your hashtags less visible.

How to hide Instagram hashtags in a comment:
  1. Write your caption as usual but don’t include any hashtags.
  2. Once your post is published, simply click the speech bubble icon under your post to leave a comment.
  3. Write out or paste the hashtags you want to include in the comment box and tap Post.
  4. On mobile, your hashtags won’t be visible unless a user taps View all comments. However, on desktop, your comment will remain in the top position, so this trick works better if you’re targeting a mobile audience.


Source: VW on Instagram

How to hide Instagram hashtags in the caption

You can also use hashtags within the caption itself without them being super-visible.

  1. At the bottom of your caption, tap Return or Enter. If you don’t see a Return or Enter button, tap 123 to bring it up.
  2. Enter a punctuation mark (try a period, bullet, or dash), then hit Return again.
  3. Repeat steps 2 to 4 at least three times.
  4. Instagram hides captions after three lines, so your hashtags won’t be viewable unless your followers tap … more. Even then, your hashtags will be visually separated from your caption so they don’t distract from your copy.

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A post shared by Rocky Mountain Soap Company (@rockymountainsoapco)

How to hide hashtags on Instagram Stories

You can hide hashtags on Instagram Stories, too. One option is simply to minimize the appearance of your hashtags by pinching and shrinking them to make them quite small. You can also tap the hashtag sticker to change it from a white background to a semi-transparent one.

If you want to hide your hashtags entirely, you can paste an emoji, sticker, or GIF overtop to obscure them.


Source: Christina Newberry

How to find trending hashtags on Instagram

Unlike Twitter, Instagram doesn’t publicize a list of trending hashtags. However, if you search for a hashtag on Instagram, you’ll see how many posts use that hashtag. You’ll also see a list of other popular Instagram hashtags using similar words, with post counts included too.


Source: Instagram

To search for a hashtag on desktop, enter the hashtag including the # symbol into the search box. On mobile, enter your search term in the search box, then tap Tags.

If you’re paying attention to your Instagram feed, you’ll learn to quickly spot trending hashtags as they emerge. Don’t be too quick to jump on a trend, though. Only post using a trending hashtag if it really makes sense for your business, and for the specific content in your post.

How to search multiple hashtags on Instagram

The easiest way to search multiple hashtags on Instagram is to set up search streams in a social listening tool like Hootsuite to track the hashtags you’re interested in so you can see all the relevant content on one screen without having to conduct each one as an individual Instagram hashtag search.


Source: Hootsuite

Instagram business profiles can conduct up to 30 unique hashtag searches in any given seven-day period.

We wrote a full post about the benefits of social listening if you want to dig deeper into how this works.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a fitness influencer used to grow from 0 to 600,000+ followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

Get the free guide right now!

How to find the best Instagram hashtags for YOUR brand

Here’s the truth. You could upload your photo to one of the many Instagram hashtag generators out there and get a bunch of free suggestions for hashtags. But, these suggestions aren’t going to be as strategic and effective as doing the research yourself.

Here’s some tips to try for coming up with Instagram hashtags that will actually drive reach and engagement.

Check out the competition

You don’t necessarily want to model your competition’s strategy too closely, but taking a look at the hashtags they use can give you some good clues about what’s working for others in your industry.

Maybe you’ll discover new hashtags to add to your repertoire. Or you could decide you don’t want to compete for the same eyeballs, in which case you can search for alternative hashtags to use.

See what hashtags your audience is already using

After all, if your audience is already using a certain hashtag, then other people just like them are probably using it too. Finding these existing Instagram communities is a great way to expand your audience and reach the people who are most likely to be interested in your business.

Keep an eye on your top followers and see what hashtags they’re using. Instagram’s search tool can give you some additional information about which hashtags the people you follow care about. When you conduct an Instagram hashtag search, the search tool will show you if anyone you follow also follows that hashtag. (Note that this only works on mobile, not on desktop.)


Source: Instagram

Use Instagram’s Related Hashtags feature

On any hashtag page, right above the “Top” and “Recent” tabs, you’ll find a list of related hashtags that you can scroll through by swiping left.


Source: Instagram

This is a great way to find relevant hashtags that might be a bit more niche than the big keyword-based hashtags you originally searched for. That means a more targeted audience with less content to compete with. These can be some of the best hashtags for Instagram brands wanting to connect with passionate communities.

Create a branded hashtag

The best hashtag for your brand may be one you create yourself. A branded hashtag is simply a tag that you create to promote your own brand or campaign.

You can then let your audience know about your hashtag by including it in your Instagram bio and highlighting it in your captions and Instagram Stories. You could also consider running a contest with a branded hashtag to popularize the hashtag while also collecting user-generated content.

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A post shared by lululemon (@lululemon)


Source: Lululemon on Instagram

Make sure to follow your branded hashtag, both within the Instagram app and using a stream in your social media dashboard, so you can monitor how it’s being used. Look for opportunities to reshare great content or connect with influential members of your audience.

To follow a hashtag within Instagram, simply tap it, then tap the blue Follow button on the hashtag page.


Source: Instagram

Use Hootsuite’s hashtag generator

Coming up with the right hashtags for every. single. post. is a lot of work.

Enter: Hootsuite’s hashtag generator.

Whenever you’re creating a post in Composer, Hootsuite’s AI technology will recommend a custom set of hashtags based on your draft — the tool analyzes both your caption and the images you’ve uploaded to suggest the most relevant tags.

To use Hootsuite’s hashtag generator, follow these steps:

  1. Head to Composer and start drafting your post. Add your caption and (optionally) upload an image.
  2. Click the hashtag symbol below the text editor.

  1. The AI will generate a set of hashtags based on your input. Check the boxes next to the hashtags you want to use and click the Add hashtags button.

That’s it!

The hashtags you selected will be added to your post. You can go ahead and publish it or schedule it for later.

7 tips for how to use hashtags on Instagram

1. Use Insights to see which tags work best

If you’ve made the switch to an Instagram business profile, you have access to post insights that tell you how many impressions you received from hashtags.

1. Select the post you want data on and tap View Insights below the post on the left.

2. Swipe up to see all the insights for that post, including the number of impressions from hashtags.

This data helps you figure out which hashtags are most effective for improving reach.

2. Include hashtags on Instagram Stories

Hashtag pages have an Instagram Story icon in the top left corner. Click on it and you’ll see a collection of Stories posts tagged with the hashtag from people with public profiles.


Source: Instagram

There are two ways to add hashtags to your Stories. The first method is to use the hashtag sticker.


Source: Instagram

Or you can simply use the text tool and the # symbol to type out the hashtag the same way you would on a photo or video post.

3. Avoid banned hashtags and spammy hashtags

When inappropriate content becomes associated with a hashtag, Instagram might ban that hashtag.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t use it at all. Instead, it means that if you click on the tag, you will only see top posts. You won’t see recent posts, and there won’t be any Stories associated with the hashtag.

Here’s what it looks like when you run into a banned hashtag:


Source: Instagram

The only way to know if a hashtag is banned is to check it before you use it. This is a good practice to put in place every time you add a new hashtag to your repertoire. Using banned hashtags can cause a drop in engagement, as your use of legitimate hashtags might also become less effective because you could be dropped in the algorithm.

Even if they’re not banned, you should avoid hashtags that shamelessly solicit likes and followers. Examples include #followme, #like4like, #follow4follow, #tagsforlikes, and so on.

Using these will attract bots, spammers, and other Instagram users who have no intention of engaging with you in any meaningful way. They also show your followers that your brand is okay with engaging in spammy behaviour. And that’s not a good look.

4. Understand how hashtag pages work

Hashtag pages are a great way to expose your content to a new audience, especially if you can get featured in the Top section.

Hashtag pages show off all the content associated with a specific hashtag. If someone searches for a post and yours is the most recent with that hashtag, it will be the first thing they see in the Recent section.

Of course, it’s much easier to stay at the top of the Recent section for a less-popular or really niche hashtag.

Keep in mind that the Recent section is sorted based on when each post was originally shared. If you add hashtags later, either through a comment or by editing the caption, this won’t bump your post up for recency.

5. Don’t use irrelevant or repetitive hashtags

It might be tempting to simply copy and paste the same long list of hashtags on every post, but don’t do it. Instagram’s community guidelines clearly state that “posting repetitive comments or content” is not okay. If you use the same hashtags for every post, your content will be penalized by the algorithm.

When you create a post, only use hashtags that make sense. If you tag a post with #wanderlust, for example, your content must be something globetrotters will want to comment on, like, and share.

It’s not about getting seen by a lot of people, it’s about getting seen by the right people. That’s how hashtags lead to higher engagement and more followers. Pick and choose the right keywords for each post individually.

6. Make sure that hashtag means what you think it means

Hashtags are often a string of words stuck together. That can create some problems when it’s not clear where one word ends and the next begins.

One of the worst examples of this was the #susanalbumparty fiasco from way back in 2012. It was a launch celebration hashtag for Susan Boyle’s new album. But read it slowly and you might pick up some words in the middle that clearly make the hashtag a bit… problematic.

Amazon played with this kind of hashtag mistake to promote Top Gear. This was done on purpose, but it would be an easy mistake to combine a possessive “s” and the word “hit” by accident.

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A post shared by Mathew chronic (@clarkson_and_memes)

Brands sometimes also are too keen to hop onto a trending hashtag without fully understanding the context. When the context is challenging, this can create a PR disaster for the brand.

And sometimes a brand just doesn’t check to see if a hashtag is already in use before creating a whole campaign. Burger King was guilty of this back in 2013, when they used the hashtag #WTFF to mean “What The French Fry.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by #WTFF (@wtff2013)

Since you already know what WTF stands for, you can probably guess why this was a problem.

7. Save hashtags for future use

If you often use the same hashtags, you can save them in a note to reduce time typing them in over and over.

Wait, didn’t we just tell you not to use the same hashtags on every post? It’s true—you should not overuse the same set of hashtags. That said, it is still really useful to have a list of hashtags relevant to the various kinds of content you post. You could even create separate lists of hashtags relevant to the different types of posts you create.

Just create a list of hashtags in your notes app, ready to add to your posts.

You can then pick and choose a few hashtags to use each time, rather than having to remember the hashtags or search for new ones for each post. This also gives you the time to check out what kind of content is already being posted for these hashtags, so you don’t make one of the mistakes mentioned above.

Just remember that every one of the Instagram hashtags you use on a post must fit with the content and should not be too repetitive. Don’t copy and paste your whole saved list onto every post.

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how to get to the TOP + Wow-chips

The classic idea of ​​website promotion looks like this: “This is when you drive in the phrase “buy Syzran wallpaper” and my website is at the very top.”

Experienced specialists understand that now the conversation has turned to SEO promotion. And you won’t believe it, but Instagram also has a kind of SEO, using which you can attract subscribers to your account. And that's... Instagram hashtags.

What is it and why

If you are an active user of Instagram, you have seen a large list of blue words written through the bars (written as #) at the end of user posts. nine0003

Clicking on any of them will take you to a page dedicated to this word with a list of publications in which it is mentioned. Those are the hashtags.

By the way, I highly recommend our article. There we told everything in detail what we needed and how we appeared.

Related:
What is a hashtag and what does a business need it for

But let's get back specifically to how hashtags work on Instagram. So let's go.

Hashtags

In short, hashtags on Instagram are a special thematic tag that groups the content of different users into one group. That is, in fact - keywords, thanks to which you can find publications on Instagram that suit you. nine0003

Important. Next, you will learn a super-method for selecting the most popular hashtags on Instagram, but first we will learn the basics so that logical relationships form in our heads.

Why do we need

The correct use of hashtags will help attract people who are interested in this topic to your page, that is, in fact, your future customers. All that remains is to sell them your product / service correctly. But this is a topic for another article.

1. Rules for adding hashtags

It seems that you don't need a lot of mind to write hashtags on Instagram. You take the words that fit the meaning and write in a row. But if you want to get the maximum, then you should still know the basic rules of how to put hashtags on Instagram correctly.

  1. Write hashtags in Cyrillic and Latin. But remember, when using English words, you begin to compete with the whole world, and not just in Russia;
  2. A hashtag does not necessarily represent a word. It can also be a phrase. For example, the phrase “favorite Instagram” can be written as #favoriteinstagram or #favorite_instagram. From this follows the third rule...
  3. Spaces or special characters cannot be used. Hashtags can only be separated by an underscore (_). And in rare cases, using numbers and emoji;
  4. Write a series of hashtags separated by spaces. This looks more aesthetically pleasing and is perceived by Instagram not as spam;
  5. The maximum number of hashtags in one post is 30. If you write a lot of hashtags, the trick will fail and Instagram will either cut them or simply post posts without text at all. nine0036

Chip. Where to put them? You can write hashtags in Instagram comments, more precisely, in the first comment, and not just in the post.

They will also be ranked. The quantity is the same - no more than 30 pieces. Below I will tell you how you can use it for your own purposes.

2. Types of hashtags

Remember I wrote that hashtags are keywords? The most interesting thing is that they, like keywords in contextual advertising and SEO, are distributed by frequency. nine0003

True, Instagram does not allow you to view the frequency of a particular hashtag. But it is possible to see how many publications are issued by hashtag separately. This is how they are divided:

  1. High-frequency - from 100 thousand publications;
  2. Medium frequency - from 10 to 100 thousand publications;
  3. Low-frequency - from 500 to 10 thousand publications;
  4. Rare - up to 500 publications.

To make it more clear: here is an example of a high-frequency, that is, a very popular (read hackneyed) hashtag:

High-frequency hashtags
3. Types of hashtags

And to complete the lecture part, I’ll also tell you that hashtags are divided not only into types according to the frequency of their mention, but also into the types of their use:

  1. Spam hashtags (for example, followme ) . Used to collect likes or followers. They give little effect. Use them sparingly and carefully;
  2. Geo-hashtags. Hashtags mentioning the city/region/country. If you have a local business, be sure to use them; nine0036
  3. Content hashtags. They are relevant to the content of the post. Mandatory to use, as they will bring targeted visitors;
  4. Trendy. Used to increase account activity. However, you need to use trends close to the business;
  5. Branded. Required hashtags by which your buyers can recognize your posts. In fact, this is your signature on Instagram;
  6. Rubricators. nine0035 Used to navigate within your account. And also for promotions, contests, sweepstakes and more.

Important. Do not use ready-made lists of the best hashtags. They tacitly refer to the type of “Spam hashtags”, since there are almost no living or adequate people according to them.

Which hashtags to choose

Ideally, your key task, if we are talking about the right approach to doing business on Instagram, is to assemble the semantic core of your future business profile along with the content plan for Instagram. Optimally, it should be 100-150 hashtags, close to what you do and what you will advertise on Instagram. nine0003

As an advertisement

And right away. If you want to collect only popular hashtags in the hope of always being on top, then I can upset you. This will not give the desired effect, since either bots or people who themselves want to sell something “scam” them.

Therefore, when forming the semantic core, be smarter and collect an equal number of high-frequency, mid-frequency and other types of hashtags.

This will increase your chances of attracting customers, not fake pages. nine0003

SEARCH SERVICE

How to find hashtags? This can be done in three popular ways (bypassing spam lists of the best hashtags): manually, by “withdrawing” them from competitors, using special programs and services. I still recommend using a service where everything is already thought out and there is analytics - Instatag.

Its charm is that the hashtags are sorted by directions and there are even special classifiers like “hashtags for likes”. All you need is to go to the service and select the hashtags that you need. nine0003 Instatag

Do not forget to carefully study our article. There we have collected the best services to promote your Instagram account!

Related:
Instagram promotion services: the best to be in the top

COMMON ERRORS

Instagram is one of the few social networks in which hashtags play a significant role.

And that's why experienced marketers, advertisers, and people of related professions are so actively using them and teaching how to do hashtags on Instagram correctly. nine0003

But either they themselves do not fully understand Instagram algorithms, or people do not attach any importance to this, when using hashtags they make a lot of mistakes. Which negatively affect the promotion of their pages:

  1. Many hashtags. Often, business accounts post a lot of hashtags in the hope that it will drive traffic. But unfortunately, the more hashtags, the more you turn the system against yourself, signaling that you are a spammer;
  2. Lots of popular hashtags. nine0035 Another error. It is better to post hashtags like #stretch ceilings_vologda than just #stretch ceilings. The number of likes will be less, but there will be more customers;
  3. The same hashtags. This is a strong signal to Instagram that you are a spammer. The punishment can be very severe. In each post, change your hashtags, and release some without them at all;
  4. Closed page. Very often people try to write hashtags on a closed page. This is a completely useless exercise, since hashtags on closed pages are not ranked by Instagram. nine0036

By the way, there can be 2 types of punishment for incorrect use of hashtags: complete deletion of the account (the worst) and “shadow ban”, this is when you see your publication, but the subscribers do not.

Related:
Shadow ban: signs + how to get out

In general, punishment is an extremely rare phenomenon, but I was obliged to warn.

Different approaches

If we are talking about the classic hashtag scheme that most users use, then it's just to write a list of all the words that come to mind and are more or less relevant to the posted publication. nine0003

This certainly has an effect, and little by little traffic will be attracted. But there are smarter approaches to put them more efficiently that I recommend using.

Life hack. Optimize your customer interactions on Instagram with MyBotan. The chatbot will automatically respond to messages, save data about the client and his requests. And you can not only choose a ready-made answer template, but also create your own. Agree this will facilitate the work in the social network? Click and test 3 days for free -> MyBotan

1. Improved version

Beforehand, you prepare hashtags for each post in the amount of no more than 20. The ideal number is about 10. And at the end of the post, highlight them in a separate block from the text. Readers will perceive this more loyally for the perception of the main text.

Improved version

2. Native version

In the text of the post itself, you need to place several hashtags (preferably 2-4), scattering them along the entire length.

The remaining 7-10 hashtags, you post in the first comment. This is how we kill 2 birds with one stone: it all looks beautiful and users go inside the post to look at the comment. nine0003 Native variant

3. Bomb variant

The main task of hashtags is to attract traffic to the site and help the publication to reach the TOP or up the user feeds.

Therefore, you can use the following trick, which is called the “like bomb”. In the post itself, you publish 30 hashtags, in the first comment 30 more.

At the start, this will give a small but increase in likes. In addition, do not forget that you need to “give impetus”, that is, boost likes and comments with the help of special services, for example, TmSmm, Instaplus. pro. nine0003

Two moments. After a couple of days, don't forget to remove most of these hashtags, leaving only low frequency ones. Otherwise, Instagram will impose restrictions on you as a spammer. The second point - do not repeat such a thing often. Otherwise... you know the punishment.

Bomb version

Briefly about the main thing

That's all. To be honest, I gave away almost everything I knew.

Hashtags are a good way to attract customers, if used correctly, and not mindlessly stamped, attracting people who work through mass liking. nine0003

All that is required of you now is to apply all the knowledge gained in your Instagram account. And then, do not stop and constantly work on updating them, because today you are doing well, and tomorrow your competitor is also doing well, and the overall effect is not the same.

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🚀 Selection of hashtags for Instagram - LiveDune Blog

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Hashtags for Instagram promotion

Instagram hashtags are a simple and affordable method of free promotion. They work similarly to keywords in Google or Yandex, that is, they help users navigate to the content they are interested in, and they allow a brand or blogger to increase coverage and attract a new audience.

Why do we need hashtags

Do hashtags still work on Instagram

How to choose the right hashtags

How to make hidden hashtags

More than 50 metrics for analyzing the effectiveness of promotion on Instagram ------ help you make the right decisions, ------ based on data

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with clear conclusions and tips ------ to promote the account

on Instagram with clear conclusions and tips ------ to promote the account

in social networks quickly and you can not forget anything in LiveDune. nine0003

Free ------ express audit of your account: on Instagram

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Why do we need hashtags

Initially, hashtags were invented to make it easier for users to find the information they need. Now the possibilities of tags have expanded. Hashtags make it easy to group content into topics and categories. Stores using navigation hashtags can place different categories of goods to make it easier for customers to navigate the assortment. An example of a brand navigation hashtag: #faberlic_discounts or #faberlic_flavors. nine0003

Unique hashtags are also used during sweepstakes, sales or marathons, so that participants and everyone who is interested can follow the progress of the event.

Do Instagram hashtags still work? For example, the #travel hashtag has over 600 million posts. It is placed on travel, or simply laying out beautiful nature. Among the huge amount of published content under this hashtag, your post will simply get lost and will not be of any use.

nine0003

In order for hashtags to work, namely to increase reach, bring in new subscribers or customers, they must match the subject of the profile and the published content. The more accurate your tags are, the more likely you are to be found by potential customers. For commercial accounts on Instagram, it is better to choose medium-frequency and low-frequency hashtags. They are more specific and designed for a narrow target audience. For example, instead of the general hashtag #renovation of apartments (about 3 million posts, that is, a high-frequency query), it is better to choose #renovation of apartments insochi (about 10,000 posts, that is, a medium-frequency query). The more you specify the request (add a city, district, specify a service), the less competitors you have for this hashtag. Besides mid- and low-frequency tags are the most converting - they are followed by people who know exactly what they want.

How to choose the right hashtags for Instagram

The selection of tags requires a competent approach and analysis so that potential customers and subscribers can find you and your offer.

Research competitors' accounts

One of the easiest ways to find the right tags is to look at your competitors and related accounts by topic/audience interests. In order not to manually analyze each post, add a competitive account to LiveDune and go to the Posts tab - the Hashtags table. All the tags that were posted in the account will be collected here - the larger the font, the more often the hashtag was used. Conveniently, hashtags are taken into account both from the text of the post and from the comments under the post. Click on the hashtag you are interested in - a page on Instagram will open, where you can see its frequency. It is convenient not to drive in the hashtag manually. nine0215

Search for hashtags by keywords

In the Instagram app, click on the magnifying glass icon and enter a keyword/phrase that relates to your niche or published content in the search bar, then go to the "Tags" tab. The search result will show all popular hashtags and their frequency. Try to choose also medium-low frequency hashtags, for this, specify the phrase.

You can also search for key phrases in Yandex Wordstat, it's convenient that in the service you can immediately filter requests for a specific region . Additionally, Wordstat will return related queries that your potential customers have requested, which makes it easier to select future hashtags. After you create a list of requests, go to Instagram and check their frequency. Select low-frequency ones and use them in your posts.

Avoid banned hashtags

To prevent Instagram from blocking you or giving you a shadowban, avoid using banned hashtags - anything related to violence, insult, pornography, drugs, firearms deals, and organized hate groups crime and terrorism. nine0003

Temporarily or permanently, Instagram blocks certain tags from appearing in search results. To check if you're accidentally using a banned hashtag, just type the word into the search bar and see the result.

How to make hidden hashtags

To focus attention on the text of the post, hashtags can be placed in the comments, and not added to the post itself. They work on the same principle. N there is another life hack that will allow you to completely hide hashtags. nine0215

  • Write any comment to your post.
  • Add a reply to this comment. Write hashtags in it.
  • Delete the first comment. The second comment will be automatically hidden, but the hashtags will still work, i.e. Your post will show up with the hashtag you entered.

This method has one drawback - you will not be able to view and edit hidden hashtags on Instagram. I'll have to delete the post and start over again. Properly selected hashtags can attract a new audience and increase desired coverage on Instagram. But hashtags are not the only free way to promote. We described all promotion methods in the article “How to promote an account on Instagram for free”. nine0215

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