Making Hashtags Work for You
Are you using the almighty hashtag properly?
We are sharing 5 things you need to consider when using them!
Hashtags are an essential item in your social media toolkit. Learning to make them work for you is important. Various platforms keep businesses on their toes by changing the way hashtags work. That’s one reason using a social media manager to handle your online business presence makes a lot of sense. They stay on top of the moving parts so you don’t have to.
Hashtags on Instagram are a great way for new followers (and ultimately customers) to find you, your business or your product/service. Instagram is all about making connections. Hashtags connect you with people looking for you. They don’t even know you or your business exists, but they find you via a relevant #hashtag they currently follow in the caption or comments.
So let’s look at 5 things to consider when choosing hashtags.
Instagram allows 30 hashtags on a post. Yes, you can use 30. It’s important to know that using 30 isn’t always beneficial; using more than 30 is detrimental. The perfect number of hashtags depends on your post content and relevant hashtags to the content.
Hashtags hold different value based on how many people are currently using them. Some hashtags have higher usage than others. So for example, a hashtag like #weekend currently has 145M users as of this blog post. If your post is relevant to the weekend, you might consider using it because you think “wow, so many people are using this hashtag.” It’s possible that you’re right. At Flywheel, we take a custom approach to find smaller or medium-density hashtags relevant to your content. Why? Because in a sea of 145 million #weekend hashtags, there’s a good chance your post will get lost and not see much interaction.
Know your content and know your intended audience. This will help you find the best hashtags for your post. Let’s say you’re a baker in a suburb. Start with your niche market in baking as a hashtag and then add another hashtag with your city location plus the word baker. #customcookies #customcookiesfrisco The first hashtag will get some broad exposure while the second will narrow it down slightly.
Choose relevant hashtags to the post topic. This is where you dial it in a little more to the specific thing you’re posting about. Perhaps now your bakery offers gluten free items, so #glutenfreebakery would be a natural and relevant choice. Next, you would include something more local such as #glutenfreefrisco as you seek more local customers. Additionally, don’t use a hashtag that is completely unrelated to the topic. This can actually hurt your post as Instagram considers this a type of spam and might shadowban your post as a result.
What’s the magic number? When you’re beginning to use hashtags, you start with trial and error. By checking your post views and seeing where new traffic was generated, you can see which hashtags were most helpful to your post. Track those analytics over the course of a month and you’ll begin to see some strong hashtags show up and you can leave off others. You can start with 5-10 focused and relevant hashtags to see which ones help your post and reach the most.
Hashtags are incredibly important for new customers and followers to find you on Instagram. Creating posts and content with relevant hashtags can be fun, quick and easy. If this seems confusing or not fun, quick or easy, click that button below so that we can help you out. Our consultation is free and the Flywheel team looks forward to working with you.
