Leverage Instagram Hashtags to Grow Your Business

The use of social media in marketing has become pretty much a standard for most businesses. You need to be where your customers are, and your customers are most likely on at least one social media platform. YouTube and Facebook continue to be the most popular platforms, according to Pew Research. 73% of U.S. adults use YouTube and 68% use Facebook. What’s the next most popular platform? Instagram – a photo-sharing app – that 35% of U.S. adults say they’re using. In the 18- to 24-year old demographic, that increases to 71% using Instagram.
Leveraging Your Visual Content Instagram allows you to make the most of your visual content. It can help generate sales, leads, and more, but, for some reason, many businesses overlook the benefits of Instagram or don’t understand how to use it to help grow their business. Hashtags are one of the essential components of an Instagram marketing plan that are frequently misunderstood; however, Instagram posts with at least one hashtag, average 12.6% more engagement than a post with no hashtags.

A hashtag is a word or phrase that is preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a specific topic. With about 95 million photos posted on Instagram every day, it can be challenging to make sure the right people (your target market) see your posts. Hashtags help sort or categorize posts, help you reach your target market, and more importantly, help your target audience find your posts. When users find exactly what they’re looking for, they’re more likely to engage with your post. Hashtags can take your business to the next level, but not just any hashtag will do. Without a clear strategy, hashtags can quickly become worthless and ineffective.

1 - Organize Your Hashtags There are Instagram analytics tools that you can use to keep track of which hashtags you are using, when you’re using them, how often, with which posts, and how they’re performing. You can also use an Excel spreadsheet. Knowing which hashtags correlate with your most popular posts, can help you decide which ones work best for your brand. 2 - Narrow Your Hashtags It may be tempting to use the most popular hashtags, but using more specific, smaller-volume hashtags means 1) less competition and 2) a better chance of reaching your target market. For example, if I want to learn more about SEO or Search Engine Optimization, and I plug in #seo, I see 1,934,438 posts, and I’m not even sure what most of them have to do with SEO. I see photos of a plate full of food, a woman standing on the beach, a baby crying, etc. It’s overwhelming, and I quickly lose interest. If I change that to #seotips2018, it goes down to 133 posts, and almost every one of those posts is related to SEO. Now, I’m happy with the results and eager to engage with some of those posts. 3 - Discover Your Magic Number It turns out there is a specific number of hashtags used with a post that works best for your brand. Most top brands use seven or fewer hashtags per post, but that may not be the best number for your brand. The only way you’ll know is to test it yourself. This may take you several months, but knowing this magic number will help you create more engaging posts on Instagram. 4 - Find Out What Other People are Hashtagging Make a list of influencers in your industry, along with your followers and competitors and see what they’re hashtagging on their photos. You can see which posts are receiving the most engagement and get ideas for hashtags that you may want to use 5 - Test Related Hashtags When you type in a hashtag in the search bar, Instagram shows you related hashtags that you can add to your list of hashtags to try out. 6 - Follow Your Own Hashtag This is a great way to see who is talking about you, so you can connect with them. 7 - Create a Brand Hashtag Campaign A brand hashtag campaign can create brand awareness, increase content visibility, and get your audience engaged. They’re great when you’re promoting a new product or event. These hashtags need to be funny, clever, or memorable to work. Here are some examples of successful hashtag campaigns of big brands: · #NationalFriedChickenDay by KFC · #ShareACoke by Coca-Cola · #TweetFromTheSeat by Charmin · #OreoHorrorStories by Oreo · #LetsDoLunch by Domino’s Pizza In June 2018, Instagram announced that it reached 1 billion monthly active users. Is this a platform that you can ignore? Probably not, but just having a presence on Instagram will not ensure success. Using the right hashtags can.

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This post is adapted from “ The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags in 2018 .” You may also enjoy this informative post, " The Perfect Instagram Hashtag Strategy"