Instagram has over 100 million active users, and these users have different interests. It is possible that your target audience belongs to 1% or even less of these users, but are you reaching them? Do they know about your services?
Hashtags are one of the many elements of Instagram that is required for creating business or self-awareness and enhancing engagements. A hashtag is a combination of the "#" symbol with words, phrases, numbers, slangs, abbreviations, emojis, or a mixture of them. On any social media like Instagram, hashtags are usually clickable and used to conduct searches.
People search for personal interests on Instagram to get entertained or get information. You might be thinking, not everyone knows how to search with hashtags, but that doesn't matter. What matters is making sure that when the few enlightened ones search, you are right there in the list of results.
Here are a few tips on how to do that:
1. Find hashtags specific to your industry
You will
be surprised at the various types of specific hashtags out there. If you're
into fashion, for instance, it's not enough to just write #fashion or #beauty,
that's just too wide. You need to narrow it down so your audience can find you.
What kind of fashion store do you run? Is it unisex or gender-specific? How's
your delivery system like? Is it worldwide or limited to a particular area?
What are your competitions and fellow fashion gurus using? Things like
#dansiki, #agbadaforladies, #ankarainlagos, or #hotblazers might work better
for you.
To find
trending hashtags, you can employ the services of Instagram analytics tools.
2. Hashtag
your brand
If you're
running a serious business that takes a huge amount of your time, energy, and
money, then you should actively consider having a brand. It is not optional, it
is compulsory. You should have a name and a voice that represents wherever it
is found. When you do, it is a good idea to use your brand name as a hashtag.
It might not catch on at first, but with other marketing strategies that bring
the knowledge of your brand to focus, you'll be glad you hashtagged your brand.
3. Use
general hashtags
Generally,
posts with at least one hashtag have more engagement than a bare post. General
hashtags or trending ones might be a good idea, you just have to know which one
speaks to the personality of your company. Let's continue with the fashion
example... Just because #love is a trending hashtag almost all year round
doesn't mean you should drop it on your post randomly. Instead, you should use
it if, for instance, it's Valentine's day and you're running some kind of
discount sales for Valentine's wear. The same thing goes for holiday or
celebration hashtags like #christmas, #independenceday, these should only
appear in your posts if you're conducting sales or a competition or something
related to these periods.
4. Include
hashtags in your comments and captions
Instagram
allows about 30 hashtags per post and 10 per story. This doesn't mean you have
to bombard your posts with hashtags, it just means you have the opportunity to
experiment. Check out successful brands on Instagram and find out the average
hashtags they use per post and in comments. Some would use just 1 in posts and
drop the first comment with about 6. It just has to be relevant to your
business because you wouldn't want to annoy people by using a hashtag
completely unrelated to what you're offering. That's going to cost you a lot of
money and I'm sure you don't want that.
At the
end of the day, it is important to remember that what works for John might not
work for Clara. So, don't stop trying things out. Vary your hashtag use from
less than 5 to more than 10, and see what works for you. Add them in comments
and captions and see which generates more attention. Don't be repetitive. Do
not spam. Do not shamelessly ask for follows and likes. Offer value, and you'll
get the engagement you need it.
Remember - the quantity is not as important as the quality. Having 100 followers with 70% recurring and existing paying customers is a lot better than having a thousand followers with less than 1% of customers.
There are tools designed to generate Instagram Hashtags. We are recommending some of them below:
1. Seek Metrics
2. All Hashtag
4. Ritetag
5. Instavast Hashtag Generator
6. Photerloo Instagram Hashtag and Keyword Generator
7. Hashtag Generator #HashMe
8. Hashtagify
9. Webstagram
10. Ask Lisa
Hey! May we suggest our free Chrome extension @inssistapp to your list? As you enter hashtags, INSSIST will automatically suggest you up to 30 or more relevant ones. Simply click suggested hashtags to add them to the post caption.
ReplyDeleteCan you send the link to the hashtag tool? So, that we can check how true are the functionalities of the tool in relation to what we wrote.
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