There are a plethora of ways to grow your business with Instagram marketing. Using paid ads, influencer marketing, video marketing, publishing various formats and post types, and optimising your Instagram management workflows, all while trying to crack the secrets of the algorithm.
But what about hashtags?
Many wonder if having a hashtag strategy is important and if hashtags should be included in social media strategy.
I mean, they are just some words, right?
Wrong.
So, if you're not sure how to use them to your advantage, or you want to upgrade your Instagram hashtags strategy, this article is for you:
If you're serious about growing your business with the help of social media marketing, Instagram hashtags should make the top of your list, as they are the secret sauce to success.
Searchability is possibly the most significant flaw in Instagram marketing, as you have limited chances of being found by a new audience. There are a few ways to get discovered by the target audience that is not among your followers:
On the other hand, an Instagram hashtag can help a user find a solution for their problem, a particular product, inspiration, reviews, user-generated content, and so much more.
To sum it up, Instagram hashtags can help you drive business results by:
But to do this, you have to be strategic about them and pay attention to a couple of rules.
Let's review some important factors you need to count on when creating your Instagram hashtag strategy for your business profile before we cover some of the most frequently asked questions.
1. Be creative, but don't overdo it. Obscure, creative hashtags can only get you so far. And if you're not a world-famous brand, you probably won't achieve much. The only time you should get "creative" and create unique hashtags is for a contest or to encourage your followers to provide you with user-generated content. So be extra cautious when choosing small business hashtags.
2. Keep in mind the goal of hashtags. There are a few hashtag categories, and each one has a different goal:
3. Keep your campaign hashtags short and sweet. When creating unique hashtags that encourage your audience to use them, ensure they are easy to implement. The longer the hashtag, the greater the chance of making a typo and losing valuable content.
4. Don't use the same hashtags for each post. We're sure your social media content tells a great story, and each post promotes a different part of your business.
This is why creating social media content pillars and assigning specific hashtag lists are important. Strategically tagging your content groups will help you:
It's entirely up to you to position your hashtags in captions or the first comment of your Feed post. But there are some benefits to including them in the comment:
And don't worry - social media management tools like Sendible allow you to publish that first comment automatically so that this hack won't require any additional effort from your side.
You can add up to 30 hashtags under your Feed Posts and up to three to your Instagram Story.
But should you use all 30?
Not really.
It's not likely that a social media post can include 30 targeted keywords. Some articles don't have that much!
There are three ways to find popular hashtags to improve the reach of your Instagram posts:
Go to Instagram's Search and type in the keyword. Then go to tags and scroll down the list to see related hashtags. Pay attention to the volume, and once you've chosen the one you deem worthy of your posts, check out the top posts to see what format performs the best. This way, you'll be able to decide strategically which format to create (Instagram Carousel, Single Post, IGTV, Reel).
You can use a hashtag tool to find hashtags that describe your posts the best. Here are some you might want to try:
When choosing your social media management tool for your business or agency, you must ensure it includes hashtag suggestions. Sendible, for example, has a Hashtag Selector feature that allows you to pick the right hashtags by search volume and automatically add them to the caption or first comment under the post. This is a great way to override manual research, additional tools, copy-pasting and do everything in one place. Additionally, you can save groups of best-performing hashtags to Content Library for easy access.
Source: TheFoodieDesigner
Finding the right hashtag can be challenging, and it can be very easy to fall into the trap of using popular Instagram hashtags.
But, dividing your Instagram hashtags per corresponding content pillars will help you adjust your hashtag strategy, as it will be easy to compare the performance.
These two steps will help you optimise your hashtag lists by replacing those that underperform, adjusting the number of hashtags you use, and even tweaking your social media content strategy by updating your content pillars to fit your target audience's needs better.
Unfortunately, there is no secret formula or a combination of the best hashtags that will get you millions of impressions overnight. But if you stick to these rules, you might get to the point where you don't need to rely on hashtags to extend your reach:
To help you get started with your hashtag strategy for your Feed posts and Instagram Stories, we have created a couple of lists of popular hashtags divided by industries:
Source: @CharlotteAime
Healthcare niche hashtags
Hashtags make up an important part of your overall Instagram strategy. As with everything related to social media, it will take time to figure out what works and what your audience engages with most.
Sendible's social media analytics feature can help you track the performance of your posts. By identifying your top-performing posts, you can hone in on the hashtags that work for your brand. You can easily save them to our Content Library for easy access, add them to the Instagram first comment, label pillars with Campaigns, and so much more.
If you're curious about how Sendible can help you optimise your Instagram marketing strategy, we suggest you start your 14-day free trial now.