Hashtags most definitely still work wonders for Instagram creators. Even though they have been around for such a long time now, their effectiveness is still very much accurate. If your posts don’t include any hashtags, you will miss out on views and organic engagement. Why risk it?
On the ‘Gram, hashtags are primarily used for attracting new potential followers, creating higher engagement, and categorizing your posts. If you want to reach your target audience – people that you believe might be interested in what you have to say – using specific, well-tailored hashtags might be the most optimal way to bring more (targeted) traffic.
Let’s go back to the start, for a sec. Hashtags were basically introduced on Instagram so that content on similar topics can be categorized together. This process makes it easier for all the users to find and track the content they are interested in! That way, hashtags are incredibly effective – but only if you can research and find the relevant and popular hashtags in your niche before adding them to your content, of course.
Chances are, you already know the basic principles of using hashtags:
1. You need the consciously picked ones for higher performance! Never everrr overburden your captions with hashtags that are irrelevant to your post.
2. Be strategic, and try to use 25-30 relevant hashtags in a post.
There are many, many other rules and strategies it’s good to know to make the most of your hashtag game – but we will talk about them a bit later. Today, I’d love to dive deeper into all the benefits of using good hashtags (and by “good” I mean – well researched), to boost your motivation, and make you more aware of all the aces in the hole that are yours to use!
To put it all in a nutshell: they can help your content reach a target audience, attract new followers in your niche, increase organic engagement, and develop a more positive (and recognizable!) profile image.
As you may already know, hashtags play an essential role in:
- increasing your organic visibility
- categorizing your posts
- giving you the power of being found in search queries
But the list is EXTREMELY longer. Let’s dive in much deeper and elaborate on why hashtags can help you maximize the potential of your posts . If Instagram is one of the social media platforms to focus your marketing efforts, this blog post is for you. Today we’ll discuss in detail 7 practical benefits of using well-targeted hashtags. Let’s go!
Actually, that’s how you gain visibility. One of the biggest reasons to start using well-researched hashtags on the ‘Gram is to help your posts get found. When someone clicks on a hashtag, it allows them to quickly find related posts and Reels that use the same hashtag. That’s why it’s incredibly important that any hashtags you use need to be relevant to your content and to your niche. If someone finds your posts while looking for something totally different, they’ll be enormously disappointed.
From a practical business standpoint: Instagram hashtags are crucial both for your personal branding and visibility. When picked consciously, they give people from your target audience the easiest way of finding your profile and give you an additional way to engage with your potential followers.
The algo is smart, so when your engagement increases, it leads to more followers. More followers =higher brand/profile awareness.
When posting new content, by adding hashtags to it, you indicate its topic and its context with the intention that people looking for content like yours will see your posts. Once added to a post, every hashtag phrase becomes searchable (and clickable).
It’s extra powerful. Hashtags basically help people find stuff they like. They are like organizational tools for the ‘Gram. They are here to make it possible for people to find posts on a given topic (when those posts use the same hashtag that is being searched for).
Finding new great posts by looking for specific hashtags has become an evergreen form of Instagram communication. More and more people are using hashtag searches to discover new profiles, which is a way of searching you can surely take advantage of!
2. Join the Community, and Learn What Others Are Saying About Your Niche and Your Topics
You can browse through your fav hashtags, to see what other creators have to say and show, and what they’re posting. For example, if your brand is in the fashion industry, you can perform a search for hashtags such as #newtrends, #sustainablefashion, to see what other creators are currently talking about. This allows you to learn new tendencies, gain inspiration and insight from others, and join interesting conversations (in the comment section) about topics that you’re also an expert in.
3. The Power of Trending Hashtags Is Real
If you’re trying to get noticed on the ‘Gram, you REALLY need to have a strong hashtag strategy. Trending hashtags can massively increase your visibility, along with your organic reach. Side benefit? They can give you great content ideas by helping you notice what other creators in your industry are producing.
Keep in mind trending hashtags can change in a blink of an eye, so you need to make sure to research them before you put time into creating a post for a specific hashtag.
To find which hashtags are trending at the moment, or are best to be used for short term use, there are several trending hashtag research tools available. One of them is IQ Hashtags, which works wonders for quick and intuitive hashtag research. It does a great job of finding relevant and trending hashtags – give it a try to make your Gram life easier. It’s also a good idea to keep track of which hashtags are currently trending.
Using hashtags appropriately will not only help your posts show up in an Instagram search, but they also help your content rank higher on Discovery Sections. There are many aspects of Instagram SEO right now, but it’s essential to ensure that well-targeted hashtags are one of them, so your content remains discoverable.
5. Categorize Your Posts
Did you know you have the power to create your own hashtags?
Using hashtags puts your posts in specific categories. If your followers (and potential followers) are interested in posts that have something to do with a certain topic, and if you use these hashtags in your posts, your followers will be able to see your posts when they enter that hashtag into the search field.
This way, you will generate a thread of all posts that contain that hashtag, and anybody, whether they’re your followers or not, will be able to see your posts and browse through them.
Instagram users can follow hashtags they’re really interested in, so choosing good ones can enhance the success of your profile and boost your engagement.
The best practice to find hashtags your target audience follows? Always try to keep up with the current insights and trending hashtags to ensure that your hashtags are updated and that you’re using the ones people are truly looking for.
If it’s difficult or time-consuming for you to find these hashtags, there are apps or websites that will help you – as you know, I always recommend my choice, that is IQ Hashtags.
Hashtags work wonders only if your account has real followers (what I mean here is: you don’t buy bots, and you don’t use follow4follow methods).
It’s worth mentioning that hashtags catalog and rank posts based on many different engagement metrics! The algo pushes relevant content to potential followers based on their engagement and their interest in similar posts.
Hashtags are an art – and Instagram algo is REALLY SMART. Or the accounts that have many fake followers, bots or too many ghost followers, hashtags aren’t working the way they’re meant to.
It can be tricky, but the truth is: it depends on how much your followers (and potential followers) have engaged on your posts. The maximum reach with hashtags is possible mainly when your followers are interacting with you – so the algo knows your profile is exciting and worth promoting.
Hashtags advantages Q&A, here we go! Let’s be honest, I get asked a lot of the same questions, so I thought I would cover some of them in a little Q&A. So let’s get into it!
As you already know, hashtags are still essential for Instagram in 2022. It’s a challenge for Instagram to deliver the right posts to the right people, and the thing is that hashtags really help to do it well. Need more benefits?
- They can boost up your content’ views.
- Your profile gets discovered by new people (your potential followers).
- They bring you higher engagement.
So yeah, use relevant, right hashtags on your posts and stories to increase your chances of “going viral” and getting discovered by new audiences on Instagram. They can bring you into more engagement, more engaged followers, and more potential clients for your business.
That’s a good one! Well, people are using generic hashtags as a way to reach more people (even if they’re random and they’re not from their target audience), and boost engagement under their posts – and they’re hoping it will work. Simple, it’s done for cheap likes and F4F.
But as you already know: it’s irritating for other users, and from what I know, Instagram is trying to get rid of these tactics. So don’t use irrelevant hashtags!
You will attract the right kind of followers only if you give your audience what they’re TRULY looking for: quality posts that speak to their interests.
There is a golden rule: the more general the hashtag is, the less valuable it’s gonna be. Instead of hashtagging #every #single #random #idea, use the well-tailored hashtags that are more niche to your target audience.
Relevance (and hashtag research) is the key. Identify hashtags that will contribute towards your goals.
A waste of time? WHAT?
Instagram hashtags are still superuseful to get more eyes (and engagement!) on your Instagram posts. Posts with at least one hashtag get on average 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag. So it really is worth creating a hashtag strategy if you want to grow your account!
Are hashtags a waste of time? NO NO NO, NO WAY, but it also depends on how you use them, of course.
But they genuinely help you get noticed. If you know which hashtags to use, then it helps you grow – woah – a LOT.
