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How to search a hashtag on instagram


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.

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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.

View this post on Instagram

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.

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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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A step-by-step guide to finding trending hashtags via Instagram search | by Mentionlytics

Instagram hashtags are a powerful tool for marketers. The use of relevant hashtags can serve a variety of purposes for your brand. Utilizing trending hashtags can help you attract followers, reach out to target audiences, and increase engagement. Statistics show that Instagram posts that have at least one hashtag receive an average of 12.6% more engagement than posts with no hashtags. It is not just about quantity though; the quality of hashtags can significantly influence their impact. In this guide, we suggest an effective strategy for finding high-quality trending hashtags using Instagram search.

Before we move on to the guide though, it is important to understand the importance of Instagram hashtags for marketing.

Hashtags are basically Instagram’s sorting mechanism. Hashtags do not hold any importance on Facebook and have little meaning on Twitter. However, on Instagram, they decide your “to be, or not to be”. This means that hashtags determine the social media reach of your posts and how discoverable your content is. They assign categories to your content, helping it reach a wider audience.

Instagram has over 95 million daily posts. This makes it a challenge for Instagram to view the right content to the most relevant people efficiently. Hashtags make your Instagram pictures more discoverable by people, who are most interested in that content. Hence, they are the most efficient tool for you if you wish to grow your Instagram profile.

Fundamentally, hashtags are used to categorize Instagram photos more efficiently. They link you with your target audience and help your target audience discover you too, which is exactly what you need for a better profile. There are more chances of these users interacting with your post because it contains exactly the content they were looking for.

It is important to understand that you may not always see more interaction just because adding the most popular hashtags on your posts. Millions of users make use of a popular hashtag. This means that you must compete with a high number of others to rank well for that hashtag. It is important to narrow down and be specific with your hashtag topic, as discussed later in this article.

All your Instagram posts can contain a caption and up to 30 hashtags. You need to be smart with your choice of words — it should not be too less or too much.

Some Instagram hashtags are favorites amongst users around the globe. The most popular Instagrammers try to use these on almost all of the Instagram pictures they post because they help them build an audience. For instance, the #likeforlike hashtag is a common way to indicate if a user likes your photo. Likewise, #followback means that if someone follows you, you will follow his/her profile too. Other popular hashtags cover wide subjects, like #makeup, #art, #travel, #fashion, etc. #love is the most popular hashtag on Instagram. Using Instagram search people find hashtags that they can use to increase their engagement.

The use of these popular hashtags allows your posts to appear in the most popular places. However, there are four significant problems with the Instagram search.

Targeting the wrong audience

You may build your audience with hashtags such as #likeforlike or #followback but what would you choose amongst hundreds of active and loyal followers who engage with your posts and thousands of followers who are only interested in a ‘like’ or ‘follow’? It is more useful to build a quality audience who really wants to see your content instead of just increasing your number of followers. For finding the most relevant users, you should make use of the Instagram profile search and Instagram lookup features. These can be used to search people on Instagram online and analyze them. This can help to determine whether specific users should be a part of your target audience or not.

Administrating content can be time-consuming

You might want to reconsider if you really have the time to follow or like everyone who follows or likes you. Because this also means that your feed will be full of content that does not really interest you. Hence you may not gain much from the #followback commitment and end up losing a lot of your precious time.

Difficult to stand out

When you use the most popular hashtags, you are competing for attention with millions of other posts. This means that even your most well-thought-of posts will be drowning in a sea of spam and a mixture of irrelevant content that loosely falls under the broad tag. Some researchers predicted that if you share a post to a tag with 10 million posts, your post appears in the feed for around three minutes only before losing its position in the top nine posts.

Making use of inappropriate and irrelevant hashtags

Instagram users have the option of blocking particular content that appears on their feed because of the hashtags they follow. Therefore, if your tags are not relevant to your content, users are more likely to flag your content; when this happens often, Instagram may consider you a spammer.

Success with hashtags come when you maintain a strategic approach towards their usage. Even though the popular Instagram hashtags, like #love, #dog, or #happy have been used in millions and millions of posts, their usage doesn’t guarantee that your post will get a lot of comments and likes.

So, instead of using the most popular Instagram hashtags, it is advised to add those top Instagram hashtags which have an active community behind them and are relevant to your industry and target audience.

Now, how to find such creative, attractive, and community-relevant hashtags? The most efficient way is to see what Instagram hashtags are being used by your competitors, industry leaders, and target users. Remember, the narrower the scope of your hashtag, the more engaged your audience is. Once you start researching, you will be surprised by how typical hashtags can get.

For instance, imagine you have to post a picture of your French Bulldog. Rather than only using the hashtag #dogstagram (more than 15 million posts), you can also use #squishyfacecrew (more than 1. 3 million posts) or #frenchie (more than 5 million posts). This way your post will reach a more targeted audience of users, who actually like French Bulldogs. Hence the engagement on your post will be more targeted and actually helpful in connecting with people having similar interests.

This is how you can determine the best hashtags for your posts:

  1. Understand your audience

As mentioned above, adding random hashtags in your Instagram posts is not going to increase your followers. So first you need to find out what hashtags your audience is using and choose the ones that are most relevant to the content you are posting. For this, you can make use of Instagram user search and Instagram profile search to analyze your audience. Remember, your tags must be relevant and include keywords that your target Instagram users are actually searching for.

  1. Understand your competitors

It is always extremely smart to keep a close look at what your competitors are doing. Similar to how you can search people on Instagram online, you can find the hashtags that your competitors are using. This will help you determine which hashtags mostly improve engagement. Your purpose may not always be to compete on those tags, but you will definitely find out what your potential consumers are talking about. Therefore, you may even discover completely new hashtags to add to your list.

  1. Understand the industry leaders

One of the most helpful ways to find good hashtags for your content is to follow Instagram leaders that influence users having similar interests as your target audience. For the unskilled, social influencers are the people that perform quite well on social media platforms. You can make use of the Instagram user search feature for finding these influencers and industry leaders.

There are respective key influencers in each industry. You need to find who these people are in your industry and learn from their success path. Since these leaders are already strongly-connected with your target audience, you can only learn good things from their experience.

  1. Make use of related hashtags

Another easy and effective way of growing your community is to find trends that are related to your own hashtag. All you have to do is type your hashtag in the Instagram search bar as shown in the guide below.

You may additionally search for Instagram photos containing the hashtag that is already proving to be helpful for you. To find other trending hashtags being used with the one that you are using, you can use the Instagram lookup.

There are two methods for using the Instagram Search for finding the best trending hashtags for your brand to use. We explain these methods of the Instagram search in detail below.

  1. Instagram search results:

A very helpful feature on Instagram is that you can search for hashtags related to a phrase. If you enter a phrase or a word in the Instagram search box, you can switch to the Tags tab on the top to view the list of related hashtags. For instance, the owner of a trip advising company can search for ‘vacation locations’ and find the related hashtags using Instagram Search. This will enable the owner to analyze what places do people like to visit when they go on vacation.

Within the same search, Instagram will show the number of posts just below the hashtag. You can use the hashtags and the number of posts to find out what hashtags are ‘trending’. Hashtags with a high number of posts are likely to be trending and popular so you can pick the first 5 or first 10 hashtags based on relevance and number of posts.

Hashtags that are unpopular and infrequently used should be avoided since very few people are interested in such hashtags. However, having said that, it is also important to note that there can be certain hashtags that are popular in a specific niche community but have few posts overall. Therefore, you need to consider not just the frequency but the audience using the hashtag before picking trending hashtags as well.

  1. Related hashtags:

You can also find related hashtags using the Instagram search. Search for a keyword or hashtag that you want to find related hashtags and then move to the Tags tab on the top. From the list of hashtags, just tap (or click) on the hashtag that you want to find related hashtags for. Instagram will suggest all related hashtags on the top of the interface.

For example, if you want to find related hashtags to “Maldives’ then you can search for “Maldives” and then tap on the “#Maldives” under the Tags tab to see the related hashtag suggestions. From within the same feature, you can explore the popularity and frequency of use of the related hashtag.

This is an effective tip on how to search on Instagram because on some occasions Instagram does not show all relevant hashtags with the simple Instagram search (as in step 1) and therefore, exploring related hashtags can help you find suitable trending hashtags.

Mentionlytics is a social media monitoring app that automates the process of finding trending hashtags and categorizing them for you. The efficiency and effectiveness of the tool are what makes the use of Mentionlytics the most successful strategy for finding high-quality trending hashtags. Rather than using the Instagram search, people such as influencers and marketing managers can make use of Mentionlytics.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to search on Instagram for hashtags using Mentionlytics with an example of the country estate booking website, fincas4you. In our example, we will be tracking all trending hashtags related to Ryanair flights for fincas4you.

An example of an Instagram post by fincas4you with their strategic use of hashtags

Step 1. Start by selecting the Add Keyword/Tracker option.

Step 2. Select the option to track Something About my Brand in the next screen.

Step 3. Add a name for your campaign in the text box that shows up in the next screen. Make use of a useful name such as “Instagram Search” or “Trending Hashtags” so that it is easier to remember for future reference.

Step 4. Now you can add the keyword phrases that you are looking to find trending or related hashtags for. The main keyword is the primary focus of the search, but you can add additional keywords or exclude keywords as well. In our example, we have added the main keyword of #ryanair.

Step 5. Select Instagram as the Data Source. Additionally, you can specify language or country filters if you wish to target particular geographical regions or languages.

Step 6. Skip the option for Social Profiles to monitor. This is because we wish to monitor trends across Instagram and therefore should not limit ourselves to a specific social profile or network.

Step 7. Configure the email alerts that you receive by setting the frequency, first-email time, and attachment settings. You can also add additional email addresses for receiving the report.

Step 8. Select Create to create your new tracker and generate reports for trending hashtags.

The Results:

The key benefit of using Mentionlytics is that it provides results, which are more comprehensive than Instagram search. Here is a breakdown of the results which are generated through the mention tracker that you created using the guide above.

  • The Top Trending Hashtags that are related to your main keyword are sent to you in the form of a table and a word cloud as shown below.
A table showing top trending hashtags for #ryanairA word cloud showing the top trending hashtags for #ryanair
  • The Top Mentioners e. the people who have used the trending hashtags the most number of times are sent to you in the form of a table.
A table showing the top mentioners of trending hashtags for #ryanair
  • A summary of the mentions including sentiment analysis and social reach of the keyword is demonstrated through the graphic shown below.
A graphic showing the summary of mentions for #ryanair

A great way to develop a positive brand image and connect with customers is to make use of effectively make use of Instagram hashtags. By making use of the strategy that we have outlined in this guide, you can grow your audience significantly on Instagram by finding and utilizing trending hashtags. Using Mentionlytics, you can simplify the process of Instagram marketing through our range of social media management tools for monitoring hashtags, managing comments, and social reporting.

  • https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/
  • https://www.convertwithcontent.com/6-ways-to-search-on-instagram-like-a-pro-increase-your-following-and-engagement/
  • https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/instagram-features-tricks
  • https://www.sistrix.com/blog/search-and-discovery-with-instagram/
  • https://blog.bufferapp.com/instagram-search
  • https://izea.com/2018/06/28/instagram-hashtag-search/

Originally posted on Mentionlytics: https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/a-step-by-step-guide-to-finding-trending-hashtags-via-instagram-search/

Instagram search by hashtag: detailed instructions

Content

  1. Start searching Instagram by hashtag
  2. Click on the Explore (star) icon in the bottom menu
  3. Click on 'Hashtags' to search for posts tagged with a specific word/phrase 9006
  4. Click on a found hashtag to view photos and videos with that tag in real time
  5. Click on 'Users' to search by username
  6. Click on a found user to view their Instagram profile

Start an Instagram search using the hashtag

Instagram is a great way to connect and share photos with close friends and family, but if you want to find specific photos or users, you need to learn how to use the Instagram search feature.

First of all, currently Instagram's search function is only available from mobile apps. The official Instagram mobile app is available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

Although you can access your feed and profile from your computer, Instagram, search web access has not yet been launched. (Although there are a few third-party apps like Nitrogram and Statigram that will let you use Instagram search.)

Open the Instagram app on your mobile device and sign in to your account to start using Instagram search.

Click on the Explore icon (star) in the lower menu

The Instagram search app is located in the Explore tab and can be accessed by clicking on the star-like icon in the bottom menu. It's the second icon from the left, between the home feed and camera tabs.

At the very top you will see a search field with the words "Search users and hashtags". Click on the field to bring up the mobile device keyboard.

Click ‘Hashtags’ to search for posts tagged with a specific word/phrase

By clicking on the search field, you can enter a query. At the top you can notice two buttons: Users ( Users) and Hashtags ( Hashtags) .

If you want to search for photos or videos on a specific topic, then you should click Hashtags . For example, you can search for "cats" and search for photos or videos of cats.

Click on the found hashtag to view photos and videos with this tag in real time

Instagram display list hashtags matching your search query. Sometimes you will only get one result, like in the #cats example. In other cases, Instagram will show multiple hashtags associated with the search term you entered.

Click on the hashtag you want to view and Instagram will show you a grid of photos and videos tagged with that hashtag in real time. The hashtags with the most posts are at the top of the list.

You don't have to type the '#' symbol before your search query, but you can if you want to. Search results with and without this symbol will not differ much. nine0003

Click on ‘Users’ to search by username

You can also use Instagram search to find individual users by clicking on the button Users instead of Hashtags .

If you know your friend's username, it's best to search for that username. You can also use their first or last name to search, but be aware that there will be many more results if your friend has a popular first name.

For example, if you want to find out if Beyonce is on Instagram, you just enter the word "beyonce" in the search Users .

Click on a found user to view their Instagram profile

When users are searched, the most similar and/or most popular users will be shown first, with their name and profile photo. You can click on the found username to view their profile.

Instagram determines relevancy by looking at your search query and the usernames, first/last names of Instagram users that are most similar to the query. The number of followers can also play an important role in where the found user is shown, making it easier to find popular brands and celebrities on Instagram. nine0003

In our example, we were looking for the singer Beyonce and her account would be the first in the list. It will be followed by several popular fan accounts with over 200,000 followers - it turns out that Instagram does place accounts with a large number of followers at the top of the list.

To figure out what to look for on Instagram, check out the list of the most popular hashtags used on Instagram, or learn how to get your photo or video to appear in the Explore tab (also known as "Top Pages"). nine0003

how to get to the TOP + Wow-chips

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

Experienced professionals 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. nine0006

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 have the ability 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; nine0006
  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. nine0133 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 way you will increase your chances of attracting customers, not fake pages. nine0003

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. 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. Many popular hashtags. nine0133 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 powerful 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. nine0006

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. 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

First, 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. So 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 they are 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.

Learn more