Instagram has come a long way from being just an image-sharing app, but one thing on it remained the same – the importance of using hashtags.
Use the right hashtags, and your posts will have the potential to be found by tons of daily active users. A single trending Instagram hashtag can increase your engagement by 12.6%.
However, to grow your reach with Instagram hashtags, you’ll need to use hashtags effectively to make it easy for users to discover your posts.
In this article, you will learn how to use hashtags on Instagram to grow your reach and engagement.
Moreover, to make your hashtags campaign a blaring success across all social networks, we got an ultimate trending hashtag calendar kit, “ 365 Days of Hashtags for 2021 + Free Design Templates”.
Let’s check out the 7 spectacular Instagram hashtag strategy to use for remarkable growth.
1. Leverage relevant trends
An excellent way to increase your follower count and engagement on Instagram is to use existing popular hashtags. This method will help you build an instant interaction level on your profile and slowly expand your reach on Instagram.
These hashtags are more generic and used mainly by a large number of users, but when combined and used with more specific hashtags related to your niche or brand, they can help you leverage viral trends. These hashtags also have a high search volume. Some of them include:
- #picoftheday: Well, everyone’s workplace cannot be as adventurous as these guys working in @natgeo, but the idea is to share a picture of your day at work. It can be a photo of you in the busy lobby of your office in your background, or it can be you in your bakery starting to bake the first cake of the day.
- #followme: Every day has a story to tell. What is your story today? Take a photo of yourself while at work and post it with the follow me hashtag. You will find how often users engage with your story.
- #TBT: A #tbt or #ThrowBackThursday is an excellent way to post about an incident that happened in the past with your audience. For example, you can share a photo of your business’s history or share an old memory of a company outing.
There are many such social media marketing hashtags that can be creatively used in your posts to gain more followers. Hence, you need to pick a relevant list of trending hashtags for your pictures.
One way to check if the hashtag you want to use is trending or not is by simply typing the hashtag with the # symbol before it in the search bar of Instagram. You will be able to see the number of posts where that particular hashtag has been used. The number of posts gives a good idea about the popularity of that specific hashtag.
2. Tap into popular weekday themes
Another fun way to engage your audience is by creating posts based on a weekday along with national holidays and popular upcoming holidays. Make use of popular themes to create your unique updates. It will make your posts fun, exciting and keep your audience engaged.
Here are some hashtags for every day of the week to make your daily posts more fun.
- #mondayblues: There are over 2,942,670 posts on #mondayblues. This hashtag is popular for accurately describing the sad feeling of 9 to 5 working people when they still have a whole week of work ahead of them.
- #takemebacktuesday is a popular hashtag to share a memory of a day you want to re-live. Instagrammers use over 348,028 posts with this hashtag. Similarly, you can also do a themed post every other day.
- #wellnesswednesday can be a post to show the importance of taking care of your health.
- #thirstythursday is to post about some fun time spent with your colleagues after work.
- #flashbackfridays, taking you back to your good old days.
- #caturday, to post a funny photo of your cat. Take a selfie while you are relaxing on a Sunday and use the #selfiesunday hashtag.
You can also post other themed posts to show different situations. For example, make a funny face and use a hashtag #funnyface along with it. Again, selecting relevant hashtags is the key.
You can get a good amount of engagement by sharing motivational quotes. Quotes can be about business hashtags like #hustleharder or #workflow, fitness hashtags like #gymtime, or nutrition hashtags like #glutenfree.
Some Instagrammers share an inspirational quote every day. Below are some examples of how to use them:
- #entrepreneurlife: Let’s say you want to share stories of your entrepreneur journey. You can use this hashtag along with other hashtags related to entrepreneurship or business.
- #dailyquote: An excellent way to motivate your audience is to share general inspirational quotes. However, do not forget to be relevant.
- #wordsofwisdom: Share a unique thought or motivational quote to inspire your audience. Keep your content original and catchy to grab your user’s attention.
The best way to know your customers is to interact with their posts. Post a comment, follow them and find out the hashtag they follow that also fits your brand. Once you find out the hashtags your customers are using, use them along with your hashtags to engage them with your brand.
For example:
@gopro knows that most of its audience is either sportspersons, adventure seekers, or photographers, so they only use hashtags that target their audience’s interests.
You will need to analyze what hashtags your audience is connecting to on Instagram. Most importantly, pick the relevant ones to your business and add them to your hashtag list.
You will have to try many hashtags and keep a lookout for new trending ones. It is best to maintain a publishing calendar and have a list of hashtags that regularly match your photos.
Over time, you will have compiled a list of hashtags that best suits your social media strategy. This compiled list will help you to get the attention of your customers. Also, keep a constant lookout for what your customers are hashtagging & create engaging content around those hashtags.
You can use a maximum of 30 hashtags in a post. However, you should not try to use all 30 hashtags. It will make your post look overcrowded with hashtags and make it hard for the user to comprehend your post’s meaning.
Instead, do keyword research on your product or service and develop 15-20 hashtags that best suit it. Then come up with 5-10 hashtags for your brand. In the meantime, remember to collect these hashtags and put them in a safe place where you can revisit them for use.
Create groups of hashtags using 5-10 hashtags saved in your Evernote file. Whenever you need to post, either manually or through your preferred best Instagram marketing tools, you can copy the relevant hashtag group from your Evernote and paste it in your post; this will save you time. Do this consistently with every post, and soon you will start seeing results.
6. Be inspiring
Create a balance between work and play. This kind of behavior will always keep your audience engaged. You can create this effect by telling users what you are doing and keeping the user’s anticipation level high. You will be able to spark engagement with your followers.
- #selfcare: You can take a picture of where you are or how you are taking care of yourself and post it with a relevant hashtag to keep your audience engaged.
- #amreading: What are you reading right now? Create an interesting-looking story and post it with the photo.
7. Geo-Targeting
If you are the owner of a local corner bakery in your town, use your city’s hashtag. You can interact and be found by your potential local customers that are using the same geo-targeted hashtags. This strategy will primarily be effective for small businesses that want to target the local audience. Keep in mind to add value to your posts for your audience.
For example, Lapinata bakery used multiple geo-hashtags to target its local audience in Westchester, Newyork, with a clear call-to-action.
Successful posters use geo-targeted hashtags and other popular hashtags like #cakelover, #pastrylover, and #foodie. A popular set of hashtags remains a great best practice to use in your posts. This works to its potential only if used consistently.
Final thoughts
Using these Instagram hashtag strategies you have learned, you will be able to grow your audience on Instagram. Use the Instagram automation tool to be consistent in your posting and keep your audience engaged by creating unique content.
We hope you will follow the Instagram hashtag suggestions mentioned in this article. Remember, you can get creative and try a mix of hashtags of your own. A healthy combination of hashtags, when used consistently with your posts, will drive your results.
We wish you the best of luck in creating your Instagram posts. 🙂
