Here’s a sad story we hear all the time from small business owners starting out on Instagram:
“I had what I thought was a great photo for Instagram. I was sure it was going to generate a bunch of likes/comments. A few hours later I checked to see if there was any engagement…nothing. Days pass, the post got a whopping 6 likes from a few of my friends and zero comments. What did I do wrong?”
If you’re looking at your posts and wondering why you have such little engagement, take a quick peek at your Instagram’s Insights. Nine times out of ten these posts got virtually no impressions…and if it didn’t get seen, it never had a chance!
When you are new to Instagram, it seems impossible to get engagement.
This guide will show you the way.
Tripling Your Instagram Engagement With Hashtags
Today we’re going to give you the low-down on hashtags: the not-so-secret keys to getting more likes, comments and follows on Instagram. Used properly, hashtags can increase your reach and grow a valuable audience of prospects that are eager to see your updates.
From our own experience, using hashtags correctly can easily triple engagement (5-10x for newer users). Read on to steal some of our personal favourite hashtags, plus learn how to find hashtags that are most effective for your specific industry and location.
What Are Hashtags?
Instagram uses hashtags to categorize content. Users can tap a hashtag to browse all of the photos and videos that have been tagged with it. Hashtags begin with the pound symbol and can include text, numbers and/or emojis (eg. #vancouver).
Basically, if you include a hashtag on your post, it can be discovered by other people. The trick is choosing the right hashtags for your specific post, and give you the best chance to be discovered by ideal prospects.
As a general rule, the bulk of your hashtags should have been used between 3,000 – 100,000 times. They’re popular…but you don’t have to be Instagram-famous to stand out.
4 Hashtag Groups All Instagram Marketers Should Keep On-Hand
As you use Instagram, you’ll discover hashtags that make sense for your audience. To get started, pick hashtags for these four groups:
1 – Popular Local Hashtags
If your business has a local presence, local hashtags will help you get relevant users engaging with your posts. Use this tool to identify popular local hashtags (enter your city in the black search bar).
Examples for Vancouver-based companies:
#vancity #yvr #via #dailyhivevan #vancouverbc #igersvancouver #veryvancouver #vancouvercanada #madeinvancouver
2 – Popular Hashtags Across All Of Instagram
These hashtags help you get engagement quickly. Early success tells the Instagram algorithm that your post is worth delivering to more people—which extends your reach to the people you want to engage with. You can see the top 100 hashtags on Instagram here.
Note: once your audience starts gaining momentum, you can reduce your use of these generic hashtags.
Examples:
#love #instagood #photooftheday #picoftheday #igers #igdaily #instadaily
3 – Quote Hashtags
Quotes get a ton of engagement on Instagram—we highly recommend including them in your posting schedule. You can use this tool to identify the top 30 hashtags for quotes (enter “#quote” in the black search bar).
Examples:
#quote #quotes #quoteoftheday #InstaQuote #inspirationalquotes #motivationalquotes #quotestoliveby #SuccessQuotes #quotestagram #instaquotes
4 – Industry Specific Hashtags
One simple way to get targeted engagement is to identify the hashtags in your specific niche. Here are the steps you can take to find industry specific hashtags:
a) Think of 3 large competitors in your industry
b) Visit their Instagram galleries and look at their last 10 posts
c) Note all of the industry-specific hashtags they use
d) Search each hashtag on Instagram to see how popular it is (and make sure the photos are relevant/appropriate).
e) Expand your this list by searching relevant keywords here.
Using Hashtags To Get Discovered By Prospective Customers
Once you decide on the hashtags you plan to use regularly, store them in a note on your phone. Make sure to keep them separated into relevant groups.
When you want to add hashtags, copy-paste the relevant hashtag groups into the first comment of a new post (not the caption). This keeps your caption clean and easy to read. Feel free to combine multiple groups of hashtags (eg. use industry hashtags and quote hashtags on the next quote graphic you share).
Maximize your engagement by including 30 hashtags per Instagram post (the limit set by Instagram)!
Happy hashtagging!
