Believe it or not, yes, hashtags are still popular.
Many, many people don't understand the use of hashtags and have, therefore, stopped using them.
Hashtags Inside and Out #️⃣
Many people struggle with hashtags, rather because they don’t know their utility, or they don’t know how to apply them correctly.
Today I will provide you with basic know-how on what hashtags’ purpose is, and how to find the best hashtags to apply to your page, without any external software or service:
Why use hahstags? 🧐
- The main purpose of hashtags is to increase / maximize your posts’ reach and engagement, which mostly leads to quality follower-gain, as they constitute one of the 3 sources of external reach (the other 2 are the explore page and “other”), being the most targeted source of reach, due to its niche-related precision.
How do I find the best hashtags that my audience is following? 🔎
- Use Instagram’s search function (just as if you were looking for the explore page), by typing in hashtags that are relevant to your brand, business or niche. Instagram will provide you with several hashtags on that category and the number of associated posts.
- Check out the hashtags that your competitors (the top performing pages of your niche) are using. This way, not only will you learn about new hashtags that you can add to your sets, but you will be more familiarized with successful hashtag tendencies.
- Meeting the first point, use some of the hashtags that influential people in your niche are using (learn from the best). Instagram success is about standing out content-wise, but it also has to do with mimetic processes when it comes to applying its tools.
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Now it’s time to know how to correctly apply them in order to leverage maximized results:
1- (This one is a bit extensive, so bear with me here):
The goal is to use a set of hashtags that are popular amongst a certain niche, but you shall apply them congruently with the content that your post displays.
The hashtags you want to use on your posts depend on your niche, on the post itself and on the size and momentum of your page.
What I mean by this is that it will be easier for your page to rank higher on bigger hashtags if its posts receive a lot of engagement (likes, comments and saves).
The algorithmic explanation is fairly simple – as your content is highly engaged with, the Instagram algorithm will assume that your content is valuable, allowing it to reach out to more users that may be interested on it, as their browsing and engagement patterns are mainly focused on that same niche.
For instance, let’s say that you own a page with 50k organic followers on the travel niche and you’ve posted a picture of a traveler in a van.
Your page will most likely be eligible to rank high on some top hashtags, meaning that you can summarize your hashtag set in big hashtags such as travel; nomad; earth; travelblogger; van; rvlife, etc.
Now, if your page has 5k followers, for instance, belonging to the same niche and posting similar content that isn’t very engaged with, it is much more effective for you to go for just 5-7 top hashtags and apply 15 to 20 small to medium hahstags in the same category, such as rvlifestyle; rvliving; rvcamping; travelcommunity; traveloften; travelsolo, etc.
2- Experiment, experiment and experiment. You will only be able to fully tell what the best hashtag strategy for you is by applying different sets on different posts yourself.
I am providing you with the “science” behind it, but be aware that hashtags are a very volatile asset of Instagram and very different hashtag appliances produce very distinct results.
3- Hashtags won’t solve your page’s exposure issues just by themselves. They have to be well accompanied with quality content (content that has viral potential) and with assets that optimize your engagement and, consequently, reach, such as powerlikes and engagement groups. The “secret” for Instagram growth is to put a strategy into practice, that fosters the correct appliance of a number of assets that enhance your page’s overall performance.
Hope this helps!
Couple of Insight pageviews before and after use of Hashtags...
Don't be fooled though. There are still plenty of people and businesses who rely on hashtags to find solutions to their needs, whether it's looking for a social media manager, a new restaurant in your area, or a graduation photographer.
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