How to use instagram tags

Ultimate Guide [+101 hashtags for 2023]

What are Instagram hashtags?

Top Instagram hashtags

Types of popular Instagram hashtags

Instagram Hashtag FAQs

7 tips for how to use hashtags on Instagram

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

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

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

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

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

What are Instagram hashtags?

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

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

Why use Instagram hashtags?

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

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

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

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nike LA (@nikela)

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

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

Top Instagram hashtags

These are the top 50 hashtags on Instagram:

#love (1.835B)
#instagood (1.150B)
#fashion (812.7M)
#photooftheday (797.3M)
#beautiful (661.0M)
#art (649.9M)
#photography (583.1M)
#happy (578.8M)
#picoftheday (570.8M)
#cute (569.1M)
#follow (560.9M)
#tbt (536.4M)
#followme (528.5M)
#nature (525.7M)
#like4like (515.6M)
#travel (497.3M)
#instagram (482.6M)
#style (472.3M)
#repost (471.4M)
#summer454.2M
#instadaily (444.0M)
#selfie (422.6M)
#me (420.3M)
#friends (396.7M)
#fitness (395.8M)
#girl (393. 8M)
#food (391.9M)
#fun (385.6M)
#beauty (382.8M)
#instalike (374.6M)
#smile (364.5M)
#family (357.7M)
#photo (334.6M)
#life (334.5M)
#likeforlike (328.2M)
#music (316.1M)
#ootd (308.2M)
#follow4follow (290.6M)
#makeup (285.3M)
#amazing (277.5M)
#igers (276.5M)
#nofilter (268.9M)
#dog (264.0M)
#model (254.7M)
#sunset (249.8M)
#beach (246.8M)
#instamood (238.1M)
#foodporn (229.4M)
#motivation (229.1M)
#followforfollow (227.9M)

Popular B2B Hashtags

#business (101M)
#entrepreneur (93M)
#success (82M)
#onlineshop (70M)
#smallbusiness (104M)
#marketing (69M)
#branding (38M)
#marketingdigital (39M)
#innovation (14M)
#ecommerce (12M)
#retail (8. 2M)
#onlinemarketing (8M)
#contentmarketing (6.5M)
#marketingtips (6.2M)
#marketingstrategy (6M)
#marketingstrategy (6M)
#startups (5.3M)
#management (5.1M)
#businesstips (5.1M)
#software (5M)
#B2B (2.6M)
#instagramforbusiness (1.4M)
#b2bmarketing (528k)
#eventmarketing (408k)
#b2bsales (125k)

Popular B2C Hashtags

#training (133M)
#smallbusiness (104M)
#business (101M)
#sale (95M)
#onlineshopping (85M)
#marketing (69M)
#marketingdigital (39M)
#promo (35M)
#socialmedia (32M)
#digitalmarketing (25M)
#startup (24M)
#socialmediamarketing (19. 7M)
#sales (19M)
#advertising (15M)
#ecommerce (12.3M)
#networking (12.1M)
#onlinebusiness (11.4M)
#onlinemarketing (8M)
#smallbiz (7M)
#company (7.9M)
#startuplife (5.6M)
#contentmarketing (6.5M)
#socialmediatips (3.2M)
#marketplace (2.5M)
#b2c (350k)
#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.

The formula for going viral

Everything you need to make engaging content. Post templates, an AI hashtag generator, and access to Canva and Grammarly Pro in Hootsuite.

Get 60 days for $0

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

#1 Social Media Tool

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.

Free 30-Day Trial

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:

Write your caption as usual but don’t include any hashtags.
Once your post is published, simply click the speech bubble icon under your post to leave a comment.
Write out or paste the hashtags you want to include in the comment box and tap Post.
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.

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.
Enter a punctuation mark (try a period, bullet, or dash), then hit Return again.
Repeat steps 2 to 4 at least three times.
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.

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.

View this post on Instagram

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:

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

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.

View this post on Instagram

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.

Manage your entire Instagram presence and save time with Hootsuite. Schedule posts and Stories, find the best hashtags, easily engage the audience, measure performance, and more. Try it free today.

Get Started

Better content in half the time

Boost engagement and save time with a hashtag generator, post templates, Canva, and Grammarly Pro in Hootsuite.

Free 60-Day Trial

The Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram Hashtags to Grow your Followers

The idea of using hashtags to grow your followers on Instagram seems to lead to one of two polarizing views. You either love to spread hashtags throughout all of your posts, or you hate using them, avoiding them like the plague. The fact remains, though, that hashtags generally help you widen the spread of your posts. Simply Measured found that posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without.

Instagram is tailor-made for hashtag usage. In fact, hashtags are arguably Instagram’s primary method of sorting and filtering content. Unlike Twitter, where most people use just one or two hashtags in a tweet, Instagrammers frequently use most of their allowance of 30 hashtags in each post.

But just because you can use 30 hashtags in a post does not mean that you should. There is no value in using irrelevant hashtags just to make up a hashtag quota. The key to Instagram hashtag usage is to include plenty of relevant hashtags that will help your fellow Instagrammers. If you use unrelated hashtags, you are spamming the system and placing yourself in danger of receiving an Instagram shadowban.

The Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram Hashtags to Grow your Followers:

How to Use Hashtags
Types of Hashtags You Should Use
Finding the Right Hashtags for Your Posts
Use Social Media Tools to Find the Best Hashtags
Use Hashtags in Your Bio
Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Stories
Special Types of Instagram Hashtag
Track the Success of Your Instagram Hashtags

How to Use Hashtags

Whenever you create an Instagram post, you should include up to 30 relevant hashtags in your caption. The reason you do this is to help people discover your content.

For instance, if you upload a post showing yourself basking in the sun onboard a yacht, you might include #summer, #travel, and #yachting along with other relevant phrases.

Instagram will then organize your post according to your tags. Your post will show up for people who search for any of these terms (at least until too many other people upload new posts that contain them, dropping your post further down peoples’ feeds).

Types of Hashtags You Should Use

1. Use Popular Hashtags to Increase Your Views

As I recently discussed in 25 Most Popular Instagram Hashtags, there are quite a few hashtags that receive regular use. The most popular tags may have too much use, however, meaning your posts would get lost in the crowd. But there are still many loved hashtags that are used a more manageable number of times.

Your posts will end up in the search results of people who search for the hashtags you use.

A recent change in Instagram, allows people to follow selected hashtags, which should further increase the reach of your posts that use those hashtags.

Often people looking at a particular hashtag will come across your post. If they like it, they may even begin to follow your Instagram account in the hope of seeing you produce further similar content.

Of course, there is the usual caveat. There is no use using a popular but irrelevant hashtag. You might, for instance, have noticed that #summer is a popular hashtag right now. You could use it on any post that evoked summer in some way. But it would not be suitable to include on the photos of your friends snowboarding. Similarly, #selfie is popular, but you wouldn't use it on your picture of a beautiful landscape.

2. Use Highly Specific Hashtags to Reach Your Ideal Audience

You should also include a selection of low-volume, highly relevant, hashtags in your posts. There may not be vast numbers of people following these hashtags, but you know that the people who do take an interest in them will make a perfect match for your account.

Source: instagram.com

So, if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, by all means, use #hobbiton on your Lord of the Rings posts – 446,559 people; have already done so. It is highly likely that anybody who searches that hashtag will take an interest in your LOTR-related posts. Of course, you should also use #lotr and join the existing 1,812,932 posts.

Depending on what your post depicts, you would use a relevant generic hashtag, and then break the topic down into more specific hashtags, too. For instance, you might use the trendy #food tag, but you should also consider using more specific food-related tags, such as #foodlove, #dinnertime, #dessert or perhaps even more niche.

Finding the Right Hashtags for Your Posts

The thought of using up to 30 hashtags per post may initially appear mind-boggling. This is particularly so when you realize you can’t just use the same block of hashtags on every post. If you post regularly to your Instagram account, you need to build up an extensive library of hashtags to use. You need to select the most appropriate group for each post you make.

Ways you can find suitable hashtags include:

Use the Instagram search function. Type in a keyword relevant to your post and select the Tags tab. Instagram will then ist a range of hashtags. Look for relevant tags with a reasonable usage that are not so popular that your posts will quickly disappear.
Use the hashtags that the influencers in your industry use.
Look at your competitors’ posts and use the non-branded tags that they use. Check their posts to ensure that the hashtags are not part of one of their campaigns before you use them, however.
Look at posts that use hashtags you have found successful. What other hashtags do these posts target? Would any of these tags be valuable to your brand?

Use Social Media Tools to Find the Best Hashtags

You might consider finding appropriate hashtags to be a daunting and uninviting task – one that potentially takes the fun out of your Instagram usage. Luckily there are quite a few software solutions to make the job more straightforward for you.

In time you should be able to create a personal library of hashtags from which you can pick and choose each time you assemble a post.

1. Instagram Hashtag Generator

The Instagram Hashtag Generator created by Influencer Marketing Hub uses AI image recognition technology to identify popular and trending hashtags on Instagram that is very easy to use: You upload your Instagram photo and the tool will generate the most popular niche hashtags for your Instagram Post. Then you can select the best hashtags and copy them in bulk and paste them in your Instagram photo caption. It also works as a Pinterest Hashtag Generator Tool.

2. Iconsquare

Iconsquare provides a full set of analytics tools for Instagram and Facebook. It gives you a wealth of knowledge about your online following.

It follows a hashtag’s growth across posts, videos, and photos. It can show you the most influential posts relating to a hashtag. It will even visualize where people are posting using your hashtags. It allows you to monitor the engagement relating to the hashtags you use.

3. Hashtagify

You can use Hashtagify to search for hashtag popularity, trends, and correlations. You can enter a suggested hashtag, and Hashtagify scrapes all related data from both Instagram and Twitter. This provides you with a detailed report on users of the hashtag. It will suggest top influencers who use the hashtag, and how their followers engage with the hashtag. It also recommends other relevant hashtags that influencers use.

Source: hashtagify.me

You can use Hashtagify to search for and locates trending hashtags, discovering the ones most relevant for your audience

4. Ritetag

Ritetag provides you with numerous hashtag suggestions for any topic of your choice. You can select a hashtag as a starting point, and Ritetag will suggest multiple hashtags that will match. You can use Ritetag to keep up-to-date with hashtag trends.

Ritetag offers a Chrome add-on which suggests suitable hashtags you can use for your posts.

It provides groups of suggested hashtags by topic, making it easy for you to compare. You can also use Ritetag to discover hashtags in a cloud-like cluster.

It color-codes hashtags so you can see whether a particular hashtag is best used to gain followers now, whether it is better used over the longer term, whether it has very little usage, or whether it is so popular that your posts will disappear too rapidly.

Use Hashtags in Your Bio

A recent change to Instagram means that you can now include clickable hashtags in your bio. This gives you an excellent opportunity to create a custom hashtag for your brand, linking to all the posts that use it directly from your bio.

It also means that you could click on hashtags relevant to your brand. For instance, if you are involved in tourism, you could include clickable hashtags in your bio that relate to your city or region.

This could be particularly useful for influencer marketers who could link to specific hashtags for their clients from their bios.

Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories can be an excellent way to get your message across to your (or your influencers’) Instagram followers. You should include hashtags in your stories to help people discover them.

As with any other Instagram hashtag, those in your Stories are searchable, meaning your Stories will show up in relevant hashtag searches.

Special Types of Instagram Hashtag

Most Instagram hashtags are generic and subject-related. This means that anybody can use them, as long as they relate to the subject matter of the post.

Some hashtags have specific purposes, however.

1. Brand Hashtags

Brands often create specific hashtags relating to their products or brand. For example, Coca-Cola encourages people to post pictures of themselves sharing a bottle of their product, using the #shareacoke tag. These are often (but not always) influencers in a paid partnership with Coca-Cola.

In most situations, brand hashtags, work best with people who already know of the brand.

Brands have found that associating a tagline or phrase with the brand works better than trying to use the brand name itself as the hashtag. #shareacoke sounds less promotional than #cocacola. The critical thing is to create a brand hashtag that people can associate with your brand identity.

You often use branded hashtags to connect themes for your audience.

Source: instagram.com

2. Category Hashtags

These can be relatively generic tags, but they relate to the central niche that your post fits into. For instance, if you upload a picture of yourself running the Boston Marathon, you should include some category hashtags, such as #running and #marathon.

Category hashtags will not generally connect to any particular brand. They are much less focused, and it is likely that many people who search for that hashtag will not have an existing connection with you. Often they will not even know of your existence.

For maximum exposure, you will want to balance using a popular category hashtag against using those trendy tags where your posts will become lost in a sea of activity. Ideally, you should search for category hashtags favored by your target market, but not too many other people. You want to use relatively narrow-focused category hashtags, that still have enough engagement to make your efforts worthwhile.

Source: instagram.com

3. Event Hashtags

Event hashtags are used to group conversations relating to a particular event. This could be anything ranging from a specific television show, e.g., #gameofthrones to a major sporting event, e.g., #worldcup, to a regional activity, e.g., #sxsw.

If there is any correlation between an event and your target market, it makes sense to create posts targeting relevant event hashtags.

Source: instagram.com

4. Campaign Hashtags

In many ways, campaign hashtags are like short-term brand hashtags. They may even be similar to an event hashtag, but specific to your business.

Campaign hashtags are designed for a particular marketing campaign, and will generally only last for the duration of the campaign. For example, you might create a campaign hashtag to use for a specific product launch. In that case, your brand and any influencers you work with would include the campaign hashtag in promotional posts relating to the launch.

Source: instagram.com

Track the Success of Your Instagram Hashtags

As we referred to in 4 Benefits of an Instagram Business Profile, operating a business profile gives you access to Instagram Insights. This gives serious Instagram users access to analytics and performance statistics far above what they provide to the average Instagrammer.

One useful feature of Instagram Insights is the ability to analyze the effectiveness of the hashtags you use. You can see how successful your hashtags have been at bringing you more views and impressions of your posts.

To see this information, open a post and tap on the “view Insights” link beneath it. Amongst the data that Instagram Insights provides is the impression for the post, split up by source. This includes Impressions from Hashtags.

While this doesn’t tell you the performance of specific hashtags, it does give you a guide to the effectiveness of the overall group of hashtags you used on the post.

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.

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.

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;
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...
You cannot use spaces or special characters. Hashtags can only be separated by an underscore (_). And in rare cases, using numbers and emoji;
Write a series of hashtags separated by a space. This looks more aesthetically pleasing and is perceived by Instagram not as spam;
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:

High-frequency - from 100 thousand publications;
Medium frequency - from 10 to 100 thousand publications;
Low-frequency - from 500 to 10 thousand publications;
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:

Spam hashtags (for example, followme ) . Used to collect likes or followers. They give little effect. Use them sparingly and carefully;
Geo-hashtags. Hashtags mentioning the city/region/country. If you have a local business, be sure to use them;
Content hashtags. They are relevant to the content of the post. Mandatory to use, as they will bring targeted visitors;
Trendy. Used to increase account activity. However, you need to use trends close to the business;
Branded. Mandatory hashtags by which your buyers can recognize your posts. In fact, this is your signature on Instagram;
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 find hashtags? This can be done in three popular ways (bypassing spam lists of the best hashtags): manually, by “withdrawing” them from competitors, using special programs and services. I still recommend using a service where everything is already thought out and there is analytics - Instatag.

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

Instatag

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

COMMON ERRORS

Instagram is one of the few social networks where 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:

Lots of 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;
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;
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;
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.

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

Different approaches

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

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 for 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. 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 for 7 days for free -> Taplink (Promo code "inscale7")

how to get to the TOP + Wow-chips

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.