Wonder why Instagram hashtags don’t work for you?
Do you want more people to see your Instagram posts?
Hashtags are the words, which people use for finding your content. It’s the way to get your pictures in front of other people besides of your followers.
On Instagram, you may use up to 30 hashtags. Though, it doesn’t mean that you need to use all of them.
From the beginning use more Instagram hashtags and when you get a few thousands of followers, use fewer. Then also you may want to start focusing on promoting your branded hashtag(s).
However, a lot of hashtags isn’t so important as which one to add.
If you want to increase the exposure of your Instagram account, use the following tactic to find proper hashtags.
Create a list of appropriate Instagram hashtags
Create an Excel file and name the first column ‘keyword’, the second column ‘amount’.
Next, make a list of words, which describe your content and put them in the first row.
Then check each of them on Instagram and add a number of posts for every hashtag to the second column.
While you are checking your words, see what other hashtags people use for the similar content and add them to your list too.
The reason is that such hashtags as #beauty, #fashion, #travel, etc. are way too popular and often it shows irrelevant content. The chance to be discovered by these hashtags is very low.
Let’s see a few examples.
Instagram hashtags experiment
Search for #travel hashtag. It was used for 106,763,918 posts already.
When you publish an image with this hashtag, it quickly goes out of the most recent search result.
These four screenshots were made every second. See how fast the feed is updating. There are no even the same pictures shown. They are already somewhere below.
Another test. Someone is looking for the fashion editorial shoots, searching #fashion hashtag.
The same problem, new pictures have been uploaded every second.
And you hope to be found in this crowd?
Instead, start using other long hashtags. Then your picture has more chances to be discovered.
What Instagram hashtags to use
When someone searches the hashtag, Instagram automatically shows other words, which have the same beginning. In that case, people can choose another more specific hashtags to get the proper result.
Because, even if the hashtag seems relevant and common, it doesn’t mean that people will find images that they were looking for as with the #fashion example.
However, if you search #fashioneditorial, there are only 500,070 posts with this hashtag and the search result will be more appropriate than just for fashion.
Open the list of hashtags you created before and range the words from lowest to highest.
From there, you see which hashtags were used too many times and won’t give the big effect to you.
To make them work, use hashtags, which has the amount of posts about 500,000 or less. Those search results update is slower.
If you found only a few hashtags, do more detailed research about the topic you post on Instagram, see what other people use.
Also, this Instagram hashtag experiment will show how to use them more effective.
Conclusion
The pictures with hashtags get more engagements and may bring more followers.
If you post about several topics on the same account, check the hashtags and make the lists for each theme.
Put the hashtag sets you created to any application for notes on your mobile device such as ‘Notes’ or Evernote.
Next time you publish something on Instagram just copy and paste them to the description.
What is your experience with using Instagram hashtags? Share it in the comments bellow and let me know if you have any questions.
Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.
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