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How to put hashtags behind instagram story


Hashtags for Instagram Stories: Everything you ever wanted to know

Take a look around… hashtags are everywhere. Well, not literally sitting on the seat next to you, but you know, on social media, on marketing campaigns, in group chats, in sarcastic conversations… everywhere. 

On Instagram, almost every post you see is accompanied by hashtags. But, lately the questions we’re getting most are specific to Instagram Stories. Should you use them on Stories? Do they even work? HOW do they work?

So if you’re curious about hashtags for Instagram Stories and how to put them to work for your business, this is the only FAQ guide you will need. Bookmark it!

Contents

    • 0.1 What are Instagram Hashtags?
    • 0.2 Why Use Hashtags on Instagram?
      • 0.2.1 Improve discovery
      • 0.2.2 Add context
      • 0.2.3 Expand reach
      • 0.2.4 Build branding
    • 0.3 Do Hashtags Work on Instagram Stories? 
      • 0.3.1 Optimize for mobile
      • 0. 3.2 Share engaging content
      • 0.3.3 Include interactive elements
      • 0.3.4 Create branded hashtags
      • 0.3.5 Use the location tag
      • 0.3.6 Target a variety of hashtags
      • 0.3.7 Make it aesthetic
      • 0.3.8 Send the right signals
    • 0.4 How Do I Add Hashtags to My Insta Story?
    • 0.5 How Many Hashtags are Allowed on Instagram Stories?
    • 0.6 What are the Best Hashtags for Instagram Stories?
    • 0.7 Streamline Your Stories with Sked Social
  • 1 Hashtags for Instagram Story: Everything You Want to Know
    • 1.1 What are Instagram Hashtags?
    • 1.2 Why Use Hashtags on Instagram?
      • 1.2.1 Improve discovery
      • 1.2.2 Add context
      • 1.2.3 Expand reach
      • 1.2.4 Build branding
      • 1.2.5 Create community
    • 1.3 Do Hashtags Work on Instagram Stories? 
      • 1.3.1 Optimize for mobile
      • 1.3.2 Share engaging content
      • 1.3.3 Include interactive elements
      • 1.3.4 Create branded hashtags
      • 1. 3.5 Use the location tag
      • 1.3.6 Target a variety of hashtags
      • 1.3.7 Make it aesthetic
      • 1.3.8 Send the right signals
    • 1.4 How Do I Add Hashtags to My Insta Story?
    • 1.5 How Many Hashtags are Allowed on Instagram Stories?
    • 1.6 What are the Best Hashtags for Instagram Stories?
    • 1.7 Streamline Your Stories with Sked Social

What are Instagram Hashtags?

Let’s start with the basics. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the # symbol. It’s used across most social media platforms but is especially popular on Twitter and Instagram. For example, #PhotoOfTheDay or #FitnessGoals.

Hashtags on Instagram become hyperlinks meaning, when an Instagram user taps them, Instagram shows you a page of (almost) all content on Instagram using that hashtag. 

Why Use Hashtags on Instagram?

Okay you get it, Instagrammers love hashtags but what purpose do they serve for brands and Instagram marketers? Let’s find out:

Improve discovery

As we mentioned before, Instagram hashtags have their own pages on the platform. Hashtag pages feature the top posts using that tag as well as the most recent content and Instagram Reels.

When you add a hashtag to your content, it appears on the related hashtag pages. If your content generates tons of engagement, it may even show up in the top content for the hashtag and better yet, you may get featured on the explore page.. This exposes your content to new users and makes your brand easily discoverable to potential new followers and customers.

Here’s an example of the #MealPrep page:

Add context

The most popular reason Instagram account holders use hashtags is to add context to their content. Hashtags are a quick way to explain what your content is about. They tell your followers as well as the Instagram algorithm a bit more about your content and clarify who the content is relevant for.

This Story from the @rogerfederer.foundation uses the #EarlyLearning hashtag to give a bit more context to this video of Roger Federer visiting Malawi.

Expand reach

Adding hashtags to your Instagram content is a popular way to try and extend the reach of your content on the platform. Your content shows up on the hashtag page. Plus, people have the option to follow hashtags and have top content directly show up on their feed as well.  So if you use a hashtag that a lot of people follow, you may potentially reach new audiences who don’t even follow you… yet!

Note: simply adding tons of hashtags to your content won’t automatically improve its reach. Your content must be valuable and engaging and send the algorithm all the right signals! The algorithm must see that people are liking it, commenting on it, sharing it, and spending time consuming your content.

If the signals look great, your content is more likely to be surfaced alongside the relevant hashtags on the hashtag page as well as other areas on Instagram. Check out this Twitter thread for a more detailed explanation.

Build branding

You don’t just have to use the hashtags everyone is using. You can also create your own branded hashtags and use them as a branding opportunity. For example, Nike uses its #JustDoIt hashtag to encourage its community to share.

For the launch of Heineken Silver, @heineken used the #HeinekenSilver hashtag across its Instagram content.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcDQOtaIiO_/

Create community

Hashtags can also be a great way to build a community around your brand. You can encourage your community to share content using specially created hashtags. They don’t just have to be your brand name.

For example, DIY lifestyle influencer @genevavanderzeil creates inspiring new DIY projects regularly. For each new major project, she comes up with a themed hashtag and encourages her community to use the tag when they recreate her projects. The content tagged with these hashtags then also become inspiration for anyone else attempting her projects in the future. 

One example of her hashtags is #Uptiled

https://www. instagram.com/p/CdmHKP4vFPJ/ 

Do Hashtags Work on Instagram Stories? 

You see hashtags on Insta posts all the time, but something that many of you seem to want to know is whether hashtags work on Instagram Stories?

The short answer is yes. But. There’s a but. 

Adding hashtags to your Stories can be helpful for expanding their reach and having them show up on the hashtag pages. But, you should know that not every Story that is tagged will show up on the hashtag search.

Yes, unfortunately, this is true. While almost all posts tagged with a particular hashtag show up on the hashtag page, this isn’t the case for Stories. The algorithm is much more selective about Story hashtags.

As you can imagine, there is a huge volume of Stories published on Instagram daily. For Instagram to consider your Story worthy of featuring on the hashtag page, your Story must be good quality and effective! 

What do we mean? Well, you must follow certain Instagram Story best practices: 

Optimize for mobile

Obviously, all your Instagram content must be optimized for mobile. Yet, we often notice brands forget about this!

The quality of your content can have a big impact on whether or not your Stories are engaging for your audience. If you’re posting content that isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, your audience will Swipe away.

Create your Stories content so they’re the right size. The dimensions for Instagram Stories are 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall (1080 x 1920, or 1080p resolution). Your Instagram Story size should have an aspect ratio of 9:16. The minimum width is 500 pixels, the maximum video length is 15 seconds, and the accepted video file types are MP4, MOV, or GIF.

Share engaging content

Size aside, the next most important best practice to keep in mind for all Instagram content but especially Stories in this case—create quality, engaging content.

Make your content interesting, useful and valuable for your audience to keep them engaged. If your Stories are nothing special, they will swipe away without engaging with you. And you know what that means? It sends the algorithm Gods a signal that your content isn’t interesting! 

Your Stories don’t have to be slick like the big brands. In fact, the beauty of Insta Stories is that they can feel a bit rawer and off the cuff. However, you must put thought into everything you post.

Think about why it’s interesting for your audience. How can you get them to engage with you through this Story? What can you share that will keep them watching through multiple sets of Stories? 

Include interactive elements

Your Insta Stories come preloaded with a bunch of fun and interactive elements. Make full use of them! It’ss a simple and fun way to engage your audience and get them to interact with your Stories.

Use Polls to get opinions. Ask questions. Invite DMs from your audience. The Insta audience is very familiar with using these features, so the more you use them, the more interaction you’re likely to get over time.

Create branded hashtags

As we discussed earlier, you may like to consider creating a branded hashtag for your business. Use it liberally across all your content, even on Stories. This is especially great if you want to invite community engagement with your content and want them to tag their content too. 

Use the location tag

Did you know that the hashtags you’re most likely to show up for are often location-based hashtags or location tags on Stories? A location hashtag is more niche (it essentially whittles down your competition to just the people in your area). So it’s a lot more likely your Story content will be displayed, or ‘rank’. 

If it’s relevant to your content, consider using location-based hashtags within your Stories content to try and give your content a boost in visibility.

Target a variety of hashtags

Location isn’t the only hashtag of course. To put your Instagram Story hashtag strategy to work, you should ideally experiment with a variety of different tags. 

Some hashtags are too big and popular and even if they’re relevant to your brand, it’s possible you will never show up on the hashtag page for them. However, a smaller, more niche tag may offer you better opportunities. Experiment with different tags to see what works best for you (and what doesn’t.)

Make it aesthetic

Most of us know how to make hashtags look better on Instagram posts. You add a long gap between your caption and the hashtags or some of us even prefer to add them to the first comment. But what about Stories? How can you add multiple hashtags to your Insta Stories without it looking cluttered? 

The recommendation from the pros is to hide your hashtags. How? One way is to add your hashtags and then pinch them to make the text as tiny as possible. Move them to the corner of your Story so they’re out of the way. Another way you can hide your hashtags and make everything more aesthetically pleasing is by placing a gif sticker over your hashtags. 

Send the right signals

Ultimately, the best “best practice” for your Instagram Stories is to create content that sends all the right signals to the Instagram algorithm. If your content is engaging, and continues to interest your audience, the likelihood of your Stories appearing on hashtag pages increases.

So long story short, there are no secret hacks or a foolproof list of hashtags to use for Instagram hashtag Story success. Focus on creating quality content for your Instagram Stories instead of getting too caught up in hashtags.

How Do I Add Hashtags to My Insta Story?

The easiest way to add hashtags to your Instagram Stories is by using the hashtag sticker. Add your Story content and then type out your hashtag within the hashtag sticker. You can only add one of these per Story.

If you’d like to add more, you can simply add a hashtag using regular text. You can also use the location sticker as an additional type of tag.

How Many Hashtags are Allowed on Instagram Stories?

Stories can usually include upto 10 hashtags. But, this doesn’t mean you have the licence to go crazy and spam every Story with multiple hashtags. This will do you more harm than good as Insta will view you as spammy.

Our recommendation is to add no more than 3-5 hashtags per story. If you’re only using the hashtag sticker, you’re already limited to only one tag per story. Here’s some more advice, direct from the horse’s mouth i.e. the @creators account:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUV20kxvLgS/ 

What are the Best Hashtags for Instagram Stories?

The best hashtags for your Instagram Stories are relevant hashtags. Tags that are meaningful for your brand, for your content and for your target audience. 

Don’t be tempted to go with the popular hashtags alone. Tags like #NoFilter, #InstaGood or #PicOfTheDay are not going to be very helpful for reaching new audiences with your content. Instead it’s better to come up with a strategy that focuses on niche hashtags. 

Not sure where to start with the right hashtags? Here are some types of tags to consider for your Stories:

  • Branded hashtags: As discussed before, these are unique and specific hashtags for your business.
  • Campaign hashtags: Running a marketing campaign? Create a unique tag to go with it. 
  • Event hashtags: Hosting a special event or promoting a holiday? Use relevant event hashtags. 
  • Community hashtags: Want your community to use specific tags to submit their user-generated content? Create and put community tags to use.
  • Industry hashtags: Know of any tags that are specific to your industry or the type of work you do? Use them when relevant.
  • Descriptive hashtags: Use hashtags that describe the content you’re posting.
  • Location hashtags: Especially useful for local campaigns – use location tags to amplify your local reach.
  • Popular hashtags: Popular Instagram hashtags like #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) certainly aren’t completely off-limits but use them sparingly and thoughtfully. Add them to your Stories when it makes sense and it’s relevant.
  • Trending hashtags: Similar to popular tags, these are tags that begin to trend sometimes due to a holiday, or even a pop culture event. If it makes sense, add them to your Stories.

Streamline Your Stories with Sked Social

Instagram Stories should be an essential part of your Instagram marketing strategy. They’re an authentic, engaging way to connect with your audience. And often, they require much less effort than creating carousel content or videos for Instagram Reels.

Sked Social can help you streamline the entire process for Stories. From bulk uploading content to automatically posting to Stories even while you’re asleep, it’s the Instagram marketing sidekick of your dreams.

Sign up for a free 7-day trial to see how Sked can help you make your Instagram marketing better.

Take a look around… hashtags are everywhere. Well, not literally sitting on the seat next to you, but you know, on social media, on marketing campaigns, in group chats, in sarcastic conversations… everywhere.  

On Instagram, almost every post you see is accompanied by hashtags. But, lately the questions we’re getting most are specific to Instagram Stories. Should you use them on Stories? Do they even work? HOW do they work?

So if you’re curious about hashtags for Instagram Stories and how to put them to work for your business, this is the only FAQ guide you will need. Bookmark it!

What are Instagram Hashtags?

Let’s start with the basics. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the # symbol. It’s used across most social media platforms but is especially popular on Twitter and Instagram. For example, #PhotoOfTheDay or #FitnessGoals.

Hashtags on Instagram become hyperlinks meaning, when an Instagram user taps them, Instagram shows you a page of (almost) all content on Instagram using that hashtag. 

Why Use Hashtags on Instagram?

Okay you get it, Instagrammers love hashtags but what purpose do they serve for brands and Instagram marketers? Let’s find out:

Improve discovery

As we mentioned before, Instagram hashtags have their own pages on the platform. Hashtag pages feature the top posts using that tag as well as the most recent content and Instagram Reels.

When you add a hashtag to your content, it appears on the related hashtag pages. If your content generates tons of engagement, it may even show up in the top content for the hashtag and better yet, you may get featured on the explore page.. This exposes your content to new users and makes your brand easily discoverable to potential new followers and customers.

Here’s an example of the #MealPrep page:

Add context

The most popular reason Instagram account holders use hashtags is to add context to their content. Hashtags are a quick way to explain what your content is about. They tell your followers as well as the Instagram algorithm a bit more about your content and clarify who the content is relevant for.

This Story from the @rogerfederer.foundation uses the #EarlyLearning hashtag to give a bit more context to this video of Roger Federer visiting Malawi.

Expand reach

Adding hashtags to your Instagram content is a popular way to try and extend the reach of your content on the platform. Your content shows up on the hashtag page. Plus, people have the option to follow hashtags and have top content directly show up on their feed as well.  So if you use a hashtag that a lot of people follow, you may potentially reach new audiences who don’t even follow you… yet!

Note: simply adding tons of hashtags to your content won’t automatically improve its reach. Your content must be valuable and engaging and send the algorithm all the right signals! The algorithm must see that people are liking it, commenting on it, sharing it, and spending time consuming your content.

If the signals look great, your content is more likely to be surfaced alongside the relevant hashtags on the hashtag page as well as other areas on Instagram. Check out this Twitter thread for a more detailed explanation.

Build branding

You don’t just have to use the hashtags everyone is using. You can also create your own branded hashtags and use them as a branding opportunity. For example, Nike uses its #JustDoIt hashtag to encourage its community to share.

For the launch of Heineken Silver, @heineken used the #HeinekenSilver hashtag across its Instagram content.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcDQOtaIiO_/ 

Hashtags can also be a great way to build a community around your brand. You can encourage your community to share content using specially created hashtags. They don’t just have to be your brand name.

For example, DIY lifestyle influencer @genevavanderzeil creates inspiring new DIY projects regularly. For each new major project, she comes up with a themed hashtag and encourages her community to use the tag when they recreate her projects. The content tagged with these hashtags then also become inspiration for anyone else attempting her projects in the future. 

One example of her hashtags is #Uptiled

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdmHKP4vFPJ/ 

Do Hashtags Work on Instagram Stories? 

You see hashtags on Insta posts all the time, but something that many of you seem to want to know is whether hashtags work on Instagram Stories?

The short answer is yes. But. There’s a but. 

Adding hashtags to your Stories can be helpful for expanding their reach and having them show up on the hashtag pages. But, you should know that not every Story that is tagged will show up on the hashtag search.

Yes, unfortunately, this is true. While almost all posts tagged with a particular hashtag show up on the hashtag page, this isn’t the case for Stories. The algorithm is much more selective about Story hashtags.

As you can imagine, there is a huge volume of Stories published on Instagram daily. For Instagram to consider your Story worthy of featuring on the hashtag page, your Story must be good quality and effective! 

What do we mean? Well, you must follow certain Instagram Story best practices: 

Optimize for mobile

Obviously, all your Instagram content must be optimized for mobile. Yet, we often notice brands forget about this!

The quality of your content can have a big impact on whether or not your Stories are engaging for your audience. If you’re posting content that isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, your audience will Swipe away.

Create your Stories content so they’re the right size. The dimensions for Instagram Stories are 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall (1080 x 1920, or 1080p resolution). Your Instagram Story size should have an aspect ratio of 9:16. The minimum width is 500 pixels, the maximum video length is 15 seconds, and the accepted video file types are MP4, MOV, or GIF.

Share engaging content

Size aside, the next most important best practice to keep in mind for all Instagram content but especially Stories in this case—create quality, engaging content.

Make your content interesting, useful and valuable for your audience to keep them engaged. If your Stories are nothing special, they will swipe away without engaging with you. And you know what that means? It sends the algorithm Gods a signal that your content isn’t interesting! 

Your Stories don’t have to be slick like the big brands. In fact, the beauty of Insta Stories is that they can feel a bit rawer and off the cuff. However, you must put thought into everything you post.

Think about why it’s interesting for your audience. How can you get them to engage with you through this Story? What can you share that will keep them watching through multiple sets of Stories? 

Include interactive elements

Your Insta Stories come preloaded with a bunch of fun and interactive elements. Make full use of them! It’ss a simple and fun way to engage your audience and get them to interact with your Stories.

Use Polls to get opinions. Ask questions. Invite DMs from your audience. The Insta audience is very familiar with using these features, so the more you use them, the more interaction you’re likely to get over time.

Create branded hashtags

As we discussed earlier, you may like to consider creating a branded hashtag for your business. Use it liberally across all your content, even on Stories. This is especially great if you want to invite community engagement with your content and want them to tag their content too. 

Use the location tag

Did you know that the hashtags you’re most likely to show up for are often location-based hashtags or location tags on Stories? A location hashtag is more niche (it essentially whittles down your competition to just the people in your area). So it’s a lot more likely your Story content will be displayed, or ‘rank’. 

If it’s relevant to your content, consider using location-based hashtags within your Stories content to try and give your content a boost in visibility.

Target a variety of hashtags

Location isn’t the only hashtag of course. To put your Instagram Story hashtag strategy to work, you should ideally experiment with a variety of different tags. 

Some hashtags are too big and popular and even if they’re relevant to your brand, it’s possible you will never show up on the hashtag page for them. However, a smaller, more niche tag may offer you better opportunities. Experiment with different tags to see what works best for you (and what doesn’t.)

Make it aesthetic

Most of us know how to make hashtags look better on Instagram posts. You add a long gap between your caption and the hashtags or some of us even prefer to add them to the first comment. But what about Stories? How can you add multiple hashtags to your Insta Stories without it looking cluttered? 

The recommendation from the pros is to hide your hashtags. How? One way is to add your hashtags and then pinch them to make the text as tiny as possible. Move them to the corner of your Story so they’re out of the way. Another way you can hide your hashtags and make everything more aesthetically pleasing is by placing a gif sticker over your hashtags. 

Send the right signals

Ultimately, the best “best practice” for your Instagram Stories is to create content that sends all the right signals to the Instagram algorithm. If your content is engaging, and continues to interest your audience, the likelihood of your Stories appearing on hashtag pages increases.

So long story short, there are no secret hacks or a foolproof list of hashtags to use for Instagram hashtag Story success. Focus on creating quality content for your Instagram Stories instead of getting too caught up in hashtags.

How Do I Add Hashtags to My Insta Story?

The easiest way to add hashtags to your Instagram Stories is by using the hashtag sticker. Add your Story content and then type out your hashtag within the hashtag sticker. You can only add one of these per Story.

If you’d like to add more, you can simply add a hashtag using regular text. You can also use the location sticker as an additional type of tag.

How Many Hashtags are Allowed on Instagram Stories?

Stories can usually include upto 10 hashtags. But, this doesn’t mean you have the licence to go crazy and spam every Story with multiple hashtags. This will do you more harm than good as Insta will view you as spammy.

Our recommendation is to add no more than 3-5 hashtags per story. If you’re only using the hashtag sticker, you’re already limited to only one tag per story. Here’s some more advice, direct from the horse’s mouth i.e. the @creators account:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUV20kxvLgS/ 

What are the Best Hashtags for Instagram Stories?

The best hashtags for your Instagram Stories are relevant hashtags. Tags that are meaningful for your brand, for your content and for your target audience. 

Don’t be tempted to go with the popular hashtags alone. Tags like #NoFilter, #InstaGood or #PicOfTheDay are not going to be very helpful for reaching new audiences with your content. Instead it’s better to come up with a strategy that focuses on niche hashtags. 

Not sure where to start with the right hashtags? Here are some types of tags to consider for your Stories:

  • Branded hashtags: As discussed before, these are unique and specific hashtags for your business.
  • Campaign hashtags: Running a marketing campaign? Create a unique tag to go with it. 
  • Event hashtags: Hosting a special event or promoting a holiday? Use relevant event hashtags. 
  • Community hashtags: Want your community to use specific tags to submit their user-generated content? Create and put community tags to use.
  • Industry hashtags: Know of any tags that are specific to your industry or the type of work you do? Use them when relevant.
  • Descriptive hashtags: Use hashtags that describe the content you’re posting.
  • Location hashtags: Especially useful for local campaigns – use location tags to amplify your local reach.
  • Popular hashtags: Popular Instagram hashtags like #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) certainly aren’t completely off-limits but use them sparingly and thoughtfully. Add them to your Stories when it makes sense and it’s relevant.
  • Trending hashtags: Similar to popular tags, these are tags that begin to trend sometimes due to a holiday, or even a pop culture event. If it makes sense, add them to your Stories.

Instagram Stories should be an essential part of your Instagram marketing strategy. They’re an authentic, engaging way to connect with your audience. And often, they require much less effort than creating carousel content or videos for Instagram Reels.

Sked Social can help you streamline the entire process for Stories. From bulk uploading content to automatically posting to Stories even while you’re asleep, it’s the Instagram marketing sidekick of your dreams.

Sign up for a free 7-day trial to see how Sked can help you make your Instagram marketing better.

12 Instagram Hashtag Hacks + Tricks You Definitely Want to Try

If you’re searching for some great Instagram hashtag hacks to get more followers and boost your engagement, you’ve come to the right place!

From hiding hashtags in your post’s first comment and Instagram Stories to picking your profile’s top-performing hashtags, we’ve got a hack for you.

Ready to get started? Here are 12 Instagram hashtag hacks and tricks you don’t want to miss:

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #1: Add Line Breaks Before Your Hashtags

You can pour a lot of love and energy into writing great Instagram captions, but isn’t it annoying when Instagram removes the line breaks from your text?

Lucky for you, we have an easy Instagram hashtag hack for this: use the Later app to write your captions!

Adding line breaks with Later couldn’t be easier. All you have to do is press the return key while writing your caption and you’ll have lovely, spaced out captions for your Instagram posts!

If you’re posting a caption with 30 hashtags, this is also a great way to keep your caption from looking cluttered and messy.

Just add a few returns (even just 1 or 2 line breaks like @brandtryouts makes a positive impact!) to move your hashtags to the bottom of your caption.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Later: Visual Social Marketing (@latermedia)

When you post your photo, Instagram will only reveal the first few lines of your caption so your hashtags will be hidden.

Line breaks work with both notification and Auto Published posts scheduled with Later. Even on our free plan!

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #2: Use Hyper-Relevant Hashtags to Get More Engagement

Using ultra-popular hashtags #love, #instagood, and #photooftheday might get you a few extra likes, but they aren’t going to help you grow an engaged, targeted following on Instagram.

If you’re hoping to get more genuine engagement, you need to get super-relevant and niche with your hashtags — by using hashtags that describe your account, your business, and your target market.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Later: Visual Social Marketing (@latermedia)

Take Little Spoon, for example, a delivery baby food company whose target market is expecting moms and parents with small children.

The account uses super hashtags to describe its product and business, like #littlespoon, #babyblends, #freshbabyfood, and #organicbabyfood as well as its own branded campaign hashtags like #itsfreshbaby and #nomoreoldbabyfood.

It also uses hashtags which describe their ideal customer like #babyfoodie, #girlmom, #boymom, and #babyontheway, along with community hashtags for parents like #motherhoodunplugged, #letthembelittle, and #dailyparenting.

These kinds of niche hashtags are perfect for growing a community of like-minded users around your brand.

Plus, they can also help you connect with others, improve the searchability of your posts, and gain new followers (and hopefully customers, too!).

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #3: Post Your Hashtags in the First Comment

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.

Here’s how to schedule a first comment on Instagram with Later:

  1. Open up the post scheduler in Later. You can do this from anywhere — Later on desktop, iOS, or Android.

  2. You’ll see a text box called “First Comment.” Enter your hashtags or any text you’d rather have in the first comment.

  3. Schedule your post as usual (including adding your Linkin.bio link!) and the first comment is scheduled along with it.

  4. You’re done!

You can now craft, schedule and automatically post the first comment on your Instagram posts — available on all Later paid plans!

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #4: Find the Right Hashtags for Your Posts with Hashtag Suggestions

Need some help finding those niche and industry-specific hashtags for your account? Then you may want to check out Later’s Hashtag Suggestions feature.

Hashtag Suggestions works by automatically finding relevant hashtags for your posts based on other hashtags that you use. Just give us a hashtag you’ve had success with, and we’ll show you other, related hashtags you can experiment with.

You can then pick and choose which of these hashtags to add you to your post. All you have to do is click “Insert Hashtags” and they’ll be added to the end of your caption.

Hashtag Suggestions is available on all Later business plans — upgrade now to get access!

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #5: Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Stories to Get on the Explore Page

Adding hashtags to your story is a great way to give your content an added chance to be discovered by new audiences.

When people search for a hashtag on Instagram, if it’s popular enough, they’ll be able to view active, real-time stories on that hashtag’s page – including your own.

And if they like what they see, they might even tap the follow button!

There are two different ways to add hashtags to your stories. One is by using the hashtag sticker (you can only add one hashtag with this method), and the other is by using the text tool and simply typing your hashtags out (you can add up to 10 hashtags using this method).

If you want to maximize your story’s discoverability, use this under-utilized hack and add relevant hashtags to your next story!

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #6: Hide Your Hashtags in Your Stories

As we just learned, hashtags are great for making your stories more discoverable. However, they can also ruin the aesthetic of an Instagram story and look “spammy” if you’re posting a ton on each story.

Luckily, there are tricks to get around it!

If you want to hide hashtags in your Instagram Stories, type out your hashtags, and then pinch them to make them smaller.

Now place a GIF or image sticker over the hashtag text so it’s perfectly hidden!

Or you can select the color tool from the text option and choose a color that perfectly matches your Instagram story background (this works a lot better if the background is a solid color). With just two taps, your hashtag content will magically blend into the background but still be searchable!

Keep in mind that if you make the hashtags too small, Instagram won’t register them! So the best way is to camouflage them with the background or hide them behind another design element.

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #7: Source User-Generated Content (UGC) from Hashtags

Incorporating UGC into your social strategy could be a game-changer. Not only will it save you a ton of time on content creation, but it will also help you engage with your followers and attract new ones.

But how do you source great UGC without spending hours on the hunt?

With Later’s UGC features, you can add Instagram posts that you are mentioned or tagged in directly to your Later Media Library, making it easy to share to your social channels in just a few clicks.

Plus, you can also search by hashtags!

Let’s say you’re a high-end luxury tea company. You may have come up with a branded hashtag (like #LittleLuxurTEA) that your followers use. You can keep this saved as a search in Later to display the last 7 days of posts across Instagram that use your hashtag, and add those posts to your library for sharing.

If you don’t use a branded hashtag, you can still find content that’s popular within your community. Using our luxury tea example, you could search for #TeaTime or something similar to see what kind of content tea lovers are posting.

You can search up to 30 unique hashtags per Instagram account over a 7-day rolling window, but only posts in the last 24 hours will show in the results.

Search by hashtag is available to all Later users with an Instagram business profile – for free.

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #8: Track Your Instagram Hashtag Success

Those who’ve switched to a business profile not only have the ability to check on how their accounts are growing over time with Instagram’s analytics, but they can also analyze how individual posts are performing and compare the specific results from each.

What does this mean for you?

You’ll be able to see exactly how effective your posts are at attracting a new audience, based on impressions from various sources — including your Instagram hashtags!

To access this information, select the post you want to get more detailed analytics on and tap “View Insights” in the bottom left.

Then swipe up to see the full page of data for that post, including things like reach, impressions, and interestingly enough, how the people who viewed your post found you.

Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t tell you which hashtags were the most effective in getting your posts discovered — so the takeaways can be somewhat limited.

If you’re looking for more in-depth analytics around your hashtag success, you may want to check out Later’s Hashtag Analytics tool.

It lets you track key insights about the hashtags you use, including a breakdown of which hashtags are driving the most likes, comments, impressions, saves, and reach on your Instagram posts.

You can use this data to see which hashtags are driving the most engagement on your posts. Once you find your top-performing hashtags, you can use them regularly to get even more engagement and traction for your business.

Instagram Hashtag Analytics is available on all Later business plans.

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #9: Follow Your Favorite Hashtags on Instagram

Did you know that you can follow hashtags just like you follow other accounts?

This is an under-utilized trick that has a ton of business uses. For example, you can encourage your existing audience to follow your branded hashtags so that you connect more easily with your community.

Or you can use the feature to keep a close eye on competitors and even discover potential partners by choosing to follow industry-specific hashtags.

When you find a hashtag you’d like to follow you simply open the hashtag page and tap on the “Follow” button.

Once you’ve selected to follow a hashtag you’ll begin seeing top posts from that hashtag in your feed and some of the latest stories in your stories bar.

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #10: Organize Your Hashtags More Effectively with Saved Captions

It used to be that the best way to organize your hashtags was with a spreadsheet, like Excel or Google Sheets. You would create a spreadsheet with headers like “hashtags,” “category,” “# of posts,” and more, and then actively fill it out as you found new effective hashtags.

Luckily, there’s a better and more time-effective way!

With Later’s Saved Captions feature, you can now create multiple hashtag lists based on your frequently used hashtag categories, all from your Later account.

For example, let’s say you run a travel brand and often post photos of beautiful locations around the world. Instead of trying to remember (or find) relevant hashtags for every post, you can use Saved Captions to keep them all organized, so you can quickly add them when scheduling in the future.

If you want to schedule a photo of a beach in San Diego, since you’ve already saved hashtags for different categories, you can we can insert relevant hashtags for beaches, California, travel, and San Diego with just the click of a button!

After you’ve written your caption, just click on “Saved Captions” and then click on the appropriate hashtag list to instantly add those hashtags to your caption.

Saved Captions is available on all Later plans — including our free plan!

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #11: Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Bio

Whether you’re promoting an Instagram contest or UGC campaign, including your branded hashtag in your Instagram bio is a fantastic way to drive engagement on your posts!

What’s so great about this feature is that it makes your bio even more functional — you can use hashtags for everything from promoting your Instagram community to highlighting your branded content and announcing your Instagram campaigns.

Including your branded hashtag in your bio is also a great way to get your followers in the habit of posting with it.

All you have to do is include a “#” before any word in your bio and it will automatically become a clickable link that leads visitors to that hashtag.

Instagram Hashtag Hacks #12: Use 10+ Hashtags to Increase Your Engagement Rate

We recently teamed up with the experts at Fohr to learn more about how hashtags are being used and what the biggest trends are for 2020.

One of our biggest insights? Instagram posts that include hashtags get more engagement… a lot more!

After analyzing influencer posts that contain hashtags, the data shows using more hashtags actually results in a higher engagement rate.

The sweet spot? 10+ hashtags per post!

This is especially true for accounts with less than 25K followers.

So if you’re a new brand or a micro-influencer looking for new ways to grow your following, having a strong Instagram hashtag strategy could be a fast-pass to a boosted follower count.

Instagram hashtags are a great way to connect with customers, find content created about you by your followers, and build long-term relationships with influential partners.

Hopefully, these Instagram hashtag hacks and tricks have sparked some new ideas that you can implement on your own account!

Ready to get moving with your Instagram marketing strategy? Later makes it easy for you to plan, manage, and schedule your Instagram posts!

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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 will 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;
  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. 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.

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.

SEARCH SERVICE

How to choose 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.

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.

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. Business accounts often 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. 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.

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, punishments are extremely rare, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Interesting. Get more hits and sales on Instagram with the help of the top Taplink multilink service. With it, you can create any form of communication (viber, WhatsApp, Telegram), create cool websites and online stores, and accept orders and payments directly on Instagram. Click and test 7 days for free -> Taplink (Promo code "inscale7")

How to write hashtags on Instagram: placement, selection, tips

December 24, 2021

10 minutes

Read the article Hide

What are hashtags

Instagram hashtags (“hash” hash + “tag”) are clickable tags that are placed using the “#” symbol and are highlighted in blue.

These tags are designed to separate publications by topic. By clicking on the hashtag, the user goes to a page with many publications on the same topic. With the help of hashtags on Instagram, you can search by content: find photos in a certain place, color scheme, at some event.

The word must be preceded by a pound sign. Words in a hashtag cannot be separated by spaces. Capital letters don't matter: the #kamaninga and #Kamaninga tags are the same thing.

View

This is what the hashtag page looks like. You can see the number of uses and subscribe to the hashtag: then publications by the tag will appear in your feed.

Statistics

Also here you can view the most popular and newest posts.

Why use hashtags

hashtags on Instagram in your post can be used for several reasons:

Raise coverage

Create your own heading of

thematically divide posts

, which is in the material

types and types of

By popularity, hashtags are divided into:

one

High-frequency - from a million posts

2

Medium frequency - from 500 thousand to a million posts

3

Low frequency - from 100 to 500 thousand posts

four

Low frequency - from 10 to 100 thousand posts

5

Niche - up to 1 to 10 thousand posts

The best strategy is a combination of tags of different popularity. So you cover the maximum circle of people and interests.

There are hashtags according to complexity:0003

Two -syllable - with two keywords: #spring or #footballmoskva

multi -sized - this is a whole phrase or sentence: #beautifully -earned

with lower emphasizing - #beauty_SPAST_MARY

according to the operation of the hashtags:

thematic

is those thematic

. hashtags that briefly describe what is happening in the photo/video.

When someone searches for a topic by hashtag, it will be easier to find you.

Search

These hashtags are designed to find people: professionals, volunteers, models. They can be a way to find people for a trial session or invites to free services.

Geographical

What is it?

Place hashtags: countries, cities, streets, etc. Specify the geolocation through the hashtag, and find the audience from the place you need.

For whom?

Especially useful if you provide services in a specific area/district and want to get additional PR.

Navigational

These tags designate categories in the account. If you have multiple sections, separate them with hashtags so that people don't get confused and can navigate through your profile.

Branded

Brand hashtags. Used to tag brands in a photo. Companies, in turn, can track their reputation and statistics using tags. Many bloggers come up with hashtags for themselves, which are then deposited in the subconscious of the audience and work to create a personal brand. Users who have tagged a brand are often liked by the brands themselves.

Trendy

Such hashtags become popular rapidly and quickly lose their relevance.

It makes sense to add them to the publication only when they are at the peak of frequent mention.

Promotional

These tags are used for mutual PR, activity exchange. The disadvantage of such hashtags is that you are unlikely to find a target audience that is sincerely interested in your content. But they will perfectly raise the asset to start an account and recruit the first subscribers.

What is this?

These tags are used for mutual PR, activity exchange.

Minus

The disadvantage of such hashtags is that you are unlikely to find a target audience that is genuinely interested in your content. But they will perfectly raise an asset to start an account.

Which hashtags to use

Choosing the right hashtags for a photo is similar to the process of forming a semantic core. You need to choose the most popular word forms and phrases. Instead of collecting keywords and making hashtags out of them, you can use our hashtag selection service. This will make your task a lot easier.

Kamaninga recommends using several hashtags that perform different functions.

This way you have a much better chance of attracting new users.

Instead of putting monotonous hashtags, use thematic, geographic, trending, promotional ones.

How many hashtags to put on Instagram

If you are a beginner blogger and your main goal is to get as many followers as possible to start with, you can use hashtags to the maximum. The maximum number is no more than 30 tags.

If your task is to get additional views, but keep everything minimalistic, we recommend putting 5-10 tags, they will be enough, especially if they are not monotonous.

How to design

There are two options for designing hashtags in a social network.

First

The first is to embed hashtags in the text itself. It turns out something like seo-copywriting.

Essence

Looks interesting, unusual, but difficult to implement. In addition, it is unlikely that it will be possible to organically insert more than 5 hashtags into such a text.

Second

The second way is the most popular: after the main text, skip a line (or many lines at once, filling them with symbols / emoticons) and write hashtags in a row.

Essence

This method saves time and effort, so it is suitable for everyone who does not want to bother.

You can add a hashtag in the description under the post even after publication: just click on the three dots on the top right and edit.

How to add a hashtag to stories

Hashtag can be added to:

Description for posts

Reels

Profile header

Stories

If everything is clear with the first three points, then the last one is a bit more complicated. Here is a quick guide to hashtags in stories:

one

Take a story or upload from the gallery

2

Swipe up

3

Among the stickers, select the hashtag

four

Write!

The second way (more successful and easier):

one

Take a story or upload from the gallery

2

Select the text tool

3

Write several hashtags in a row

This is interesting!

To hide hashtags, but not remove them, reduce their scale to the minimum. So your story will get a lot more views than usual, although no one will see the hashtags on it. If you want to learn more about Instagram Reels, read our article with life hacks.

How to use hashtags to promote your account

Reduce competition

To reduce competition, use only Russian hashtags. So you are most likely to be found through a global hashtag search.

Stay relevant

Use relevant hashtags that are fully relevant to the topic of the post. This way you will have the best chance of attracting an interested audience.

Remember diversity

Use different Instagram hashtags every time you post to get followers from different areas. You will reach more new new people and attract traffic.

Expert opinion

Eduard Nurullin

Co-founder of a digital marketing agency

Analyze which hashtags brought the most people to you. This can be done by people with a business profile. Use more often those that best go to the public.

How to choose a popular hashtag for a photo

You can find tags by searching Instagram on your phone or computer. You need to select hashtags as simple as possible: those for which you yourself would search for goods / services on Instagram.

Specificity

If you have already compiled a semantic core, find out the frequency of hashtags from the keywords you have collected. Combine popular hashtags and not so popular ones.

Analysis

Analyze competitors' accounts: what hashtags they write on Instagram, how often and where. Take the ones you like. If a competitor's photo is similar to yours, you can borrow some of the tags.

Relevance

Use hashtags that will always be relevant. For example, the hashtag #dengorodamsk2021 will live only for a week, but #moscow will never lose its relevance.

Total

In this article, we reviewed the best life hacks for using hashtags on Instagram. Now you know how to get extra PR and promote your account. If you want to learn even more, we recommend you the article on how to use hashtags correctly.

When collecting the semantic core, use the words that best describe your post

Prepare different hashtags for each post

Hashtags are a tool that everyone needs that can be used in every post, just by placing a hash in front of the words.

What tags do you use the most?

Thematic

search engines

Geographic

Navigational

Branded

trending

Promoting

FAQ

I don't want to put dots between the body text and hashtags. What to do?

Using our service, you can generate spaces that form an empty string. This will make your post look neater.

What hashtags should you not use?

Irrelevant and those that were mentioned less than a thousand times.

Learn more