How To Properly Use Hashtags On Instagram

Read time: 5 minutes

Instagram is a great tool for marketing your business, especially if young people are a part of your target market. 65% of Instagram users in January 2018 were aged between 18 and 34 (Statsita, 2018). But there are already thousands of brands on Instagram targeting this age group, so how do you stand out and gain more followers?

Using hashtags can be a great way to get your brand exposed to your target audience. If you’re on Instagram, you will have seen hashtags being used by users and brands in a range of different ways. But how do you properly use hashtags on Instagram? And how can using hashtags on Instagram help your business?

In this blog, we give you advice on how to properly use hashtags on Instagram and how they can help you get more followers, find your target audience and create a sense of community with your customers.

How to properly use hashtags on Instagram for business:

Getting discovered

Hashtags were designed to help your photos get discovered. The purpose of hashtags is to group relevant photos so that users can view a feed of photos with the same theme all in one place. Instagram users can click on a hashtag and see all the photos that have publicly used the same hashtag and discover new posts from brands and people they may not already follow. This is useful for brands that want to be discovered by people interested in a specific category. For example, if you want your business to be found by people who are interested in shoes, you can #shoes on your post and then anyone scrolling through the #shoes feed can see your post.

To get discovered, use hashtags that are relevant to your business and the photo you are posting. If your photo is relevant to the hashtag, it is more likely to be clicked on and therefore your brand is more likely to be discovered.

Creating a community

Brands can create branded hashtags to create a sense of community with their audience. Using a branded hashtag on your post encourages your customers to upload photos of your products or service and use your hashtag. This then helps you gain further exposure as your customers followers will see your hashtag with the photo of your product or service.

Branded hashtags can be your business name, #redsteps, or a product or service you offer, #redstepswebsite.

Another great way to create a community with your followers is to create a branded hashtag that is can be used to connect with your customers whenever they post a photo featuring your brand.

Charity campaigns like International Women’s Day do this especially well.

This year, International Women’s Day are using the hashtags #IWD2019 and #BalanceForBetter to encourage followers to get involved in the campaign. This is powerful as it brings the organisation’s post together with the public’s posts and shows the amount of influence the campaign is having all over the word. A great example of how to properly use hashtags on Instagram!

Getting in on the trends

If getting onboard with trends is a part of your social media strategy, keep an eye out for trending hashtags! Hashtags like #treatyoself, #photooftheday and #tbt have been on trend in the past, but there are always new trending hashtags on the platform.

Using trending hashtags is great if you want to get lots of likes and comments on your post and more followers. However, it is not likely the people who interact with your page through a trending hashtag will actually be interested in your business’ products or services. Trending hashtags are more likely to attract spam.

Caption vs first comment

If you want to use a lot of hashtags, it’s best if you put them in the first comment of the Instagram post instead of in the caption. Let the caption of your post focus on conveying a message to your audience. It’s OK to use your branded hashtags in your caption, but try to put generic hashtags in the first comment. This way the hashtags are hidden and your post will look more authentic to your followers. Too many hashtags in your caption might look like spam!

Local hashtags

Hashtags can be accessed by anyone on Instagram anywhere in the world. If you’re a small business, only interested in targeting people in your area, try using hashtags specific to your business’ location.

We hope this blog has helped you understand a little more about how to properly use hashtags for business! If you want some help running your business’ Instagram, contact us today! We offer social media packages that can help your business get more exposure! Visit our social media packages page for more information.

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