What is the Best Way to Use Hashtags on Instagram?
Why You Should Use Hashtags on Instagram?
Hashtags are one of the most reliable ways to get users to view your content and increase engagement. Posts with at least one Instagram hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than ones who don’t. Imagine how much your engagement could explode with implementing an entire hashtag strategy? Keep reading to find out our best practices for effectively using hashtags on Instagram.
How Many Hashtags Should I Use?
The number of hashtags does matter in terms of engagement. According to TrackMaven, the popular marketing analytics software, posts with nine hashtags receive the most engagement. Instagram does allow up to thirty hashtags a post, however, it’s not always necessary to use all thirty allowed.
When it comes to hashtags, the relevance of the tag is more crucial than the amount, but we’ll dive deeper into this later on. For now, it’s important to test the correct amount of hashtags for your brand. Our suggestion is to implement 15–25 different hashtags per post to figure out which ones are effective for your brand. Some posts may take off using more hashtags, while others thrive with a select few. You’ll also want to switch it up and use different hashtags for different photos to avoid stagnant engagement or a spam block from the app itself. There is no concrete answer and the key to finding the best strategy for your account is trial and error.
Where to Place Them?
Deciding where to place your hashtags is a common roadblock for social media managers, influencers and brands alike. There are two popular choices for where to place hashtags: in the caption or the first comment on the post. Does one improve your engagement or increase the chances of your posts being noticed?
Truth be told, there is no difference in functionality between the two options. It’s a personal choice.
Our suggestion for how to use hashtags on Instagram is to put them in the first comment. The reason behind this method is by putting them in the caption they are quickly buried by user comments. The caption route effectively categorizes your content and makes it searchable for users who do not follow you but do not take away from the content in your caption, which should be your greater focus.
If you’re writing an engaging caption with a call-to-action, including tons of hashtags will distract from the main purpose of your post. This is why we recommend placing the hashtags in the comments, out of sight out of mind. To hide the hashtags from an immediate glance in your comments, precede your hashtags with 5 periods, one period per line. Saving this period hashtag wall in your notes will save you time each time you add them to your posts comments.
Finding the Right Hashtags
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