How to Choose the Right Instagram Hashtags?

Everything you need to know about using the right Instagram hashtags on your posts! 😉

We will have to agree — Instagram Hashtags are the unsung heroes of Instagram Brand Strategy. They do not get their due share! Don’t you agree? However, the truth is — even today in the year 2021, hashtags play a pivotal role in attracting a large sum of eyeballs [engagement] on your post. Yes, you read it right. Hashtags are used in every aspect of Instagram — Reels, Stories, Posts, or IGTV. Their usage helps in showing the content to a large set of audience. It is true and proven that a post with at least one or more Instagram hashtags averages more engagement compared to posts without a hashtag. Yes! That is indeed true. Don’t believe us? Try it out yourself.

All in all — it really is worth creating a detailed hashtag strategy for your brand/or your clients/potential clients on Instagram. It will only help you or them in long-term growth.

This ultimate guide to Instagram hashtags will help you understand everything you need to know about using a hashtag. After reading this blog, you will have the following:

1. More followers, read up more about how to grow followers here: How to Get More Instagram Followers
2. An improved engagement rate
3. And, of course, a like-minded community that resonated with your business.

So, let’s get started with knowing more! Are you ready? We bet you are! 👊

It is simple but let’s begin by answering a very important question:

Why are Instagram hashtags important?

Well, there is one thing that we will have to agree that Instagram has changed a lot since it started, from the logo to layouts to new ways of creating content, etc. But all through this, one thing has stayed absolutely consistent — the importance of using hashtags Like we mentioned earlier. Even in the year 2021, using relevant, targeted hashtags on Instagram are some of the best ways to get traction and be seen by a new set of audiences absolutely ORGANICALLY. And from here, it is a domino effect that is sure to translate into more engagement, more followers, and more customers for your business! It is basically a win-win situation.

But it is very important that you have a public Instagram account for these hashtags on your content to work. Private accounts will not help you as much purely because of its ‘privacy’. For example — public accounts will help the content float on hashtag repository pages, check the picture below.

These pages help reach a larger set of [new] audiences. Consumers on Instagram follow these hashtags repository religiously for new content pieces.

Further, It is important and simple to understand that hashtags on the platform are used with an idea to discover and be discovered — the usage of the right hashtags can put you in front of your [potential] target audience, even if they have not been connected with you ever before!

Another example to understand the same is — A food blogger posts a picture like shown below — Citrus Detox Water Recipe, and then uses hashtags such as #FridayMornings #DetoxYourBody #DetoxWater #CitrusDetox. Instagram users can now discover this post on the repository pages of the above hashtags.

Now that you have a fair idea of hashtags and how they can catalyze your growth, it is important to take note of the following:

1. As discussed earlier, accounts with private profiles using hashtags on their posts will not benefit because they won’t appear publicly on hashtag pages. So, head up! If you have a private profile and are looking to grow your account — consider making your profile on Instagram public. This you can simply achieve by tapping on the settings section followed by privacy settings.
2. Numbers are allowed when using hashtags. Spaces and special characters such as @#$%, will not work and won’t fetch you any traction.
3. It is important for you to know that you can only use up to 30 hashtags on a post on your feed and 10 on Instagram stories. More than that, Instagram will not accept, and it will not post your content. So if something like this happens to you don’t fret!

For your reference, the top 50 Instagram hashtags of all time!

1. #love
2. #instagood
3. #photooftheday
4. #fashion
5. #beautiful
6. #like4like
7. #picoftheday
8. #art
9. #happy
10. #photography
11. #instagram
12. #followme
13. #style
14. #follow
15. #instadaily
16. #travel
17. #life
18. #cute
19. #fitness
20. #nature
21. #beauty
22. #girl
23. #fun
24. #photo
25. #amazing
26. #likeforlike
27. #instalike
28. #selfie
29. #smile
30. #me
31. #lifestyle
32. #model
33. #follow4follow
34. #music
35. #friends
36. #motivation
37. #like
38. #food
39. #inspiration
40. #repost
41. #summer
42. #design
43. #makeup
44. #TBT
45. #followforfollow
46. #ootd
47. #family
48. #l4l
49. #cool
50. #iger

Also, don’t forget to read up on this blog we recently posted on the topic: Are your Instagram Hashtags not working?

Now that you are sorted with a huge list of ‘evergreen’ hashtags on Instagram, let’s look at different types of Instagram hashtags.

Types of hashtags on Instagram

It is important to know and understand different types of hashtags, as they correspond to varying audiences. This helps in developing an effective Instagram hashtag strategy.

Community hashtags:

These hashtags are the type of hashtags that resonate and connect a set of like-minded users around a specific subject. These hashtags do wonders in connecting people who think alike and enjoy similar things. Also, it helps in building your own little community on Instagram while increasing your searchability in this huge universe of Instagram hashtags.
To understand it further, let’s look at types of different community hashtags that you can use:

1. Hashtags that talk about your product/service such as #Bakery, #CoffeShop, etc.
2. Hashtags that showcases your niche in your industry such as #CakeDecorater, #TravelPhotographer
3. Use hashtags for special events or seasons such as #IndependenceDay2021, #SummerSeason
4. Use location-based hashtags such as — #OldDelhiFood, #AndheriEast, etc.
5. Daily hashtags such as #TuesdayTip, #MidWeekMotivation, #FridayRoundUp, etc.
6. Hashtags with phrases relevant to what you do such as #KickBoxingIsLove, #BakeryLove, #BeCreative, etc.
7. Hashtags with acronyms are a must! #QOTD, #OOTD
8. And, lastly hashtags with emojis! The cutest way to reach out.

While the above tips and tricks should be up your sleeves at all times and are great ways to get maximum traction, we also recommend that it is always better to use a variety of hashtags on your posts and stories. This will help your content reach different communities at one time and increase the chances of engagement on your posts. Read more about how to generate engagement on your posts here. For example, if you run a bakery account, you could use #GuiltFreeBaking to reach users looking out for healthy options. For users looking out for indulgence, #NoCheatDays, along with location-specific hashtags such as #DineInNewDelhi. This way you will reach out to varying people. Try it out!

Branded hashtags

A branded hashtag is a hashtag that is unique to your company/page when using Instagram for business. It can be something as simple as your company name #PredisAI or your tagline, or the name of one of your popular products, or any suggestively a lifelong campaign. You can also opt for an alternative route where this hashtag has nothing to do with your brand name but everything to do with your brand identity! That will work wonders too.

While community hashtags are meant to increase the reach of your message, branded hashtags are designed to connect themes for you and your target audience. These hashtags can be used to promote a campaign or simply collating User Generated Content. For example, AllBirds, an extremely popular all-natural sneaker company used the hashtag #WeAreAllBirds to drive awareness around their brand and generate brand loyalty by urging their customers to share relevant content.

Getting your followers to use your branded hashtag in their posts and stories is key to getting discovered and reached on Instagram by a new set of audiences. The branded hashtags will allow followers to see and tap on them to know more. It is like a digital way of word of mouth. Once you create your hashtag, remind your customers they can use the same while they share stories/posts. This way, your set of followers can tap the hashtag and see other posts about your business. It’s also a good idea to follow your branded hashtag to keep track of new content that’s being shared. You never know what ‘viral’ thing comes out of it. Each and every hashtag holds value.

Campaign hashtags

While community and branded hashtags are meant to last, campaign hashtags are however lived for a shorter duration. They run only for a few days, a season, or maybe even a year. The reason campaign hashtags are shorter-term is that they are usually tied to a specific campaign such as a new product launch, special events, topical days like Diwali, or exclusive partnerships. So they are great for building a lot of engagement in a shorter span of time.

Tips for Optimizing Your Instagram Hashtags 🎯

Lastly, let’s look at how you can optimize your hashtags to their best potential. A great Instagram hashtag strategy does not just reach more people — it also reaches the right people for overall business growth. Here are some tips to optimize your hashtags:

1. Check your Instagram hashtag analytics. This will provide an overall idea of how your hashtags in the previous post performed and what you can learn from them.
2. Utilize Predis.ai to understand what complementary hashtags will work on your posts for maximum traction; read more about this here.
3. Include your branded hashtags that you have finalized in your bio. This makes your bio interactive and one can tap to move onto the hashtag to see brand credibility/loyalty.
4. After you have posted your picture and caption, utilize the first comment of the post for discoverable hashtags. This will make your caption look neat and not spammy.
5. Add hashtags to your story. Instagram pushes any new update on the platform to garner eyeballs. The same thing is true for Instagram stories too. It has a larger organic reach when compared to posts, so make the most of it. Add up to 10 hashtags to your stories.
6. Entice your followers to follow your branded hashtag along with using it on their profiles. Holding contests and awarding them for the same are some great ways of doing this. This will simply help increase the searchability of your branded hashtag.
7. While you are posting hashtags in your posts, comments, stories, reels, etc. ensure you take five minutes out of the job and spend some time researching the hashtag via the search tab on Instagram. It will help you understand which hashtag has a larger following, increasing your chances of higher traction.
8. Did you know? Instagram has a ‘Related Hashtags Feature?’ Yes, it is true, you can utilize this feature while searching for a particular hashtag and it will show you related hashtags which you can use in your content to increase traction.
9. Avoid hashtags that are banned or are spammy in nature. Instagram will not appreciate this behavior and will penalize your content on an immediate basis. The only way to ensure that the hashtag you are planning to add to your repository is banned or spammy in nature is to simply search it on the Instagram search bar and it will let you know. It is that easy!
10. Lastly, do not use hashtags for the sake of using hashtags. Use hashtags that are relevant and resonate with the content you are pushing. Otherwise, it will seem you are being lethargic and repeating hashtags, minimizing your traction.

Have any other tips to share? I’d love to hear from you! For a larger understanding visit us at Predis.ai. We will help you in choosing the right hashtags! ✌️

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