Instagram Hashtags Explained

If you’d like to grow your reach and audience on Instagram, it is important to have a hashtag strategy included in your plan. The experts on Business and Digital Marketing at Momentum Digital are here to help you with easy to follow Instagram Hashtag Guide for 2023.

Hashtags have become a staple in social media. The first hashtag ever was used on August 23, 2007, by a Twitter user named Chris Messina as a means to differentiate between groups of topics within tweets. – Sprout Social.

Since then, hashtags grew from a small trend on Twitter, to a global phenomenon adopted as an universal language to organize content on different digital channels. Now, hashtags are found everywhere on platforms like Instagram. They’ve become so popular, that you can find hundreds of thousands of posts using hashtags shared on social media daily.

A hashtag is a combination of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by the # symbol (e.g. #NoFilter). They are used to categorize content and make it more discoverable. – Blog Suite

Hashtags are clickable, just link a link or @tag. Anyone who clicks on an Instagram hashtag and searches hashtags on Instagram will find a hashtag page, showing all the posts tagged with that hashtag, locations tagged, followers, and an option to follow said hashtag with just a button. This Instagram hashtag page is a great tool for the research and implementation of a successful Instagram hashtag guide and strategy.

Are Instagram Hashtags still relevant?

Hashtags are an important way to expand your Instagram audience, increase reach and engagement. When you use a hashtag, your post will appear on the page for that hashtag (see image above). The hashtag page is a discovery tool for users to search for content they are interested in seeing on their personal feed. 

Instagram users can now also choose to follow hashtags, which means they could see your content including said hashtag in their feed, even if they don’t follow you (yet).

If you use a hashtag on an Instagram Story, it has the potential to be included in the relevant hashtag Story, which also appears on the hashtag page. Users searching for the subject or hashtag will stumble upon your content, including Reels and Stories, on the hashtag page.

Instagram hashtags can be a great way of building community online so people are motivated to engage with your brand. That is why it is so important to have an Instagram hashtag planning guide to help you get the most out of content.

Opportunities in an effective Instagram Hashtag Guide

When you use hashtags, you’re increasing reach and engagement on your social media content. Hashtags are one of the most powerful organic social media strategies, but in order to maximize their performance, you need to track your hashtags.

Hashtags are also used as a reference for Instagram’s algorithm, so it can categorize your content and suggest it to users it thinks will have a high interest. – Later

A good Instagram Hashtag Planning Guide requires using the “right” hashtags that can put you in the feed of your target audience, even if they haven’t connected with you before.

• Increase Content Views + Engagement
  • Hashtags help people find your content, even if they don’t follow you! That increases the likelihood of likes, comments, shares, and saves.
• Increase Brand Awareness + Followers
  • By telling Instagram’s algorithm what your content is about by using hashtags, your content will reach more users, improving your chances of getting organic followers and loyal brand fans!
• Organic Results
  • Due to recent changes to the Instagram Algorithm, it is very hard for brands and businesses to reach users. Followers and non-followers and now far less likely to see content from businesses when they are not being promoted. This means that unless you pay for some PPC ads on Instagram, you’re not likely to get organic followers and engagement unless you invest in advertising. Hashtags help you to reach new users organically, without spending a dime on ads or promotions.
• Improves Your Algorithm
  • By helping the algorithm categorize your content, using hashtags will boost your posts to users that are more likely to engage and be interested.
  • The better Instagram’s algorithm understands your content, the more relevant your content will become. Relevant content is always boosted on Instagram Algorithm, increasing the likelihood posts appear on user feeds.
• Join communities and conversations
  • Social Media content should always be catered to help your brand or business join conversations and be part of a community. Being part of a community boosts engagement and reach for businesses because it shows effort and connection to users within a conversation or topic.

Here are some strategies to grow your Instagram organically using our Instagram Hashtag Guide

• Create a list of 10 – 30 keywords that relate to your brand, products, or services.
• Go to Instagram and input the hashtags on the search bar
• Verify how many followers and posts the hashtag has
• Pick hashtags that don’t have over 1 million followers and/or posts
• Follow the hashtags selected and like at least three posts
• Search for competitors, followers and influencers and check what relevant hashtags they are using
• Create content based on hashtags researched and selected
• Include relevant hashtags from research on every post
• Limit Instagram hashtags at least 10, max 30 hashtags per post
• Use hashtags on Instagram Stories, currently limited to up to 10
• Use hashtags on Instagram Reels to boost views and engagement

Use these other ideas for your Instagram Hashtag Planning Guide to improve reach, impressions, and engagement. 

• Competitors Hashtag Research:
  • Research and create a list of ten (10) direct competitors.
  • Include competitors in different price ranges.
  • Keep competitor list local if your business only serves a community, location or area.
  • Check their last 6 – 10 posts and track hashtags that are relevant to your brand or products, popular (more than 10,000 followers) and current.
  • Select a list of at least 10 hashtags to include in your posts or create new content.
  • Follow the selected Instagram hashtags and get involved in conversations by engaging with existing content.
• Influencers & Creator Hashtag Research:
  • Influencer and creators are a rich source of content for relevant brands and products.
  • Make a list of influencers or content creators popular in your industry or within your target audience.
  • Influencer and content creators should ideally have over 10,000 followers, although some small local small profiles may have little over 5,000.
  • Keep the influencers and creator list local if your business or products only serve a community, location or area.
  • Follow at least 20 content creators and check what hashtags they use on popular content.
  • Check their most popular posts (with the most engagement) and make a list of at least 10 keywords included relevant to your brand or business.
  • Follow at least 10 of these hashtags, specially if you see them on multiple influencers content.
  • Include the selected influencer hashtags on posts, stories and reels.
  • Create new content based on these influencer hashtags.
• Industry Content Research:
  • Find Instagram pages from other businesses, creators and leaders in your industry.
  • Follow profiles that have more than 50,000 followers and post regularly about the subject matter.
  • Find their most popular content for hashtags and current topics popular with your target audience.
  • Make a list of 10 relevant hashtags found in the content on these industry leaders or influencers.
  • Big name brands, international companies and industry experts make for great content ideas.

In conclusion, having a solid Instagram Hashtag Planning Guide will help you execute an effective content strategy that will help increase:

• Reach: Users that follow a hashtag will have better chances of seeing your content.
• Engagement: If the content is relevant and useful, users are more likely to like, comment, share, and save.
• Sense of Community: Hashtags are a way to connect with a community and share content on a subject scale.

So next time you are planning new captions, or creating new content for Instagram, keep in mind these ideas to grow your audience and get the most out of your posts.