How does hashtag work on instagram

When used on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other hashtag-friendly places around the web it turns into a link. The link features all content tagged with the same hashtag. On Instagram, you can not only add hashtags to your posts, but you can also follow hashtags in order to discover content related to your interests. Hashtags can also be used to group together your own content.

To add a hashtag to a post, simply type a pound sign followed by your keyword or keywords, with no spaces. You can include up to 30 hashtags in a single post. But although you can include 30 hashtags, there is some debate about whether you should.

Some people say it looks spammy. However, studies have shown that posts using 11 or more hashtags get the best engagement. Experiment to determine what works best for you. You can use hashtags in all sorts of places on Instagram. Add them to your profile bio to hyperlink to specific projects or collections of posts. Or, use them on posts in your feed or Instagram Stories to reach a wider audience. When posting to your feed, you can either include hashtags in the description or in the comments.

Some people put hashtags in their post descriptions, while others prefer to add them to the comments. If you are using hashtags in your description, one of the perks is that you can go back and edit later to remove hashtags or add new ones. Some Instagrammers choose to include one strong hashtag in the description and add additional hashtags in a comment.

Want to hide the hashtags on your Instagram posts? Many Instagrammers choose to bury the hashtags by typing a few periods and returns underneath their initial description. When people scroll past your post in the feed, the hashtags will be hidden under a "more" link. For example, use the same five or so on-brand hashtags, but add in a few new ones that are even more relevant to the photograph or video you are sharing. Relevancy is critical when it comes to hashtag use: If someone is exploring a hashtag and your super irrelevant post pops up, it could make the entire brand look un-reputable.

Everyone loves free stuff. This is just simple human nature. I find myself entering Instagram giveaways on the daily to win cookbooks of chefs and bakers I follow. Often, these giveaways are quite simple to enter. The brand will post about giving away a copy of whichever cookbook and ask you to tag a friend in the comments to enter. While this is a super easy and doable way to give something away, why not take it a step further with a branded hashtag? Take the example below from Talalla Retreat, a beach-front resort that emphasizes yoga.

Rather than just having users like and tag someone in the comments, their contest required folks to post a picture with the hashtag WINTalalla. Another wonderful thing about hashtags is that they are a great way to connect with others and build a community. Keeping an eye on trending hashtags can help you discover new partners and engage those who are in your target market. Building an Instagram marketing campaign around a hashtag can also be a super useful way to partner up with a related brand.

This will help you gain even more exposure, since this partner brand will be posting about your company to their entire audience. Here is a great example from Lululemon UK and Stava, which partnered to run a fun challenge encouraging followers to complete a K run and tag their Instagram posts challenge.

Not only does this type of hashtag campaign get both audiences followers involved, but it also grows the brand awareness for each company with exposure to an even larger audience. Just check out how many people took part in this hashtag challenge.

In fact, some of the most successful branded hashtags are the ones that apply to any post. Take the hashtag created by the sneaker company, allbirds. Rather than using generic hashtags on every post, they use one very creative and catchy hashtag weareallbirds. Relevancy to what you do almost always trumps the popularity of a tag. Be as specific as you can! Test your posts to find the sweet spot, the perfect number for you. In a similar vein, keep an eye out for the correlation between your most popular posts and the hashtags you use.

Follow your best hashtags and especially your own, if you have a branded one. You can then reach out and engage with them directly, which may earn you some followers.

Keep an eye on your competitors and industry influencers. Standing out in a crowded space can make you unnoticeable. So instead of focusing on the popular tags, the best way to achieve hashtag success is to find niche hashtags that are only popular among your very selective target audience.

So why are we going over the most popular Instagram hashtags now? For instance, take love. Why not make a hashtag about love that incorporates your brand. WordstreamLove sounds pretty catchy to me! How much time do you dedicate to thinking about your Instagram hashtags?

Read on to learn more about how using hashtags on Instagram could benefit your brand and how to put these strategies into action. Why should you as a brand even care about hashtags? There are a number of benefits that you get from using hashtags on Instagram. The biggest reason for using hashtags is for the increased exposure and discovery. Clicking on a hashtag in Instagram leads to a gallery of both the top posts and latest posts that used the hashtag. This means that if you use the right and most relevant hashtags for your brand, others searching on that hashtag will find those posts.

Your audience can use branded hashtags to show off their experiences with your products or services as a form of brand advocacy. Hashtags are good for overall brand exposure. Even clicking through one post on the search results page will lead you to other similar posts. When you use branded hashtags and encourage their use, it becomes another form of engagement. Tagged feed posts are saved in search results and tagged story posts are saved for the duration of the story.

Think of hashtags as just another way to reach and engage your customer base. How much digital space are your competitors taking up in your market? Hashtags help you analyze your share of voice on social media. In an ideal share of voice situation, your posts and ones that your customers have tagged are taking up the bulk of those hashtag search results. You can also check out posts with your relevant hashtags for content inspiration and to get ideas on where your brand might be falling short compared to competitor content.

Similar to what you would do for SEO keyword research , hashtags can help you research different content ideas. Say you want to increase your share of voice in the naturalskincare hashtag. Use this area as inspiration. What seems to be working for similar brands? By clicking into top posts for details, you might also be able to find additional hashtags that are less highly populated, but just as relevant to your audience, similar to secondary keywords for search optimization.

Whether they encourage you to use their general brand hashtag or a campaign one, hashtags offer an easy way to connect digital and in-real-life campaigns. Is that post cool and creative? Gone are the days where hashtags were still new and brands threw in every popular hashtag they could think of, regardless of its relevance. Here are seven to think about. This is a tricky question because the answer varies wildly. If you enter more hashtags as the first comment, then up to 30 hashtags would be acceptable.

However, this is not to say that you should use 30 hashtags for every post. This leads us to the next tip. Too many hashtags in a caption overwhelm valuable real estate and can make it look messy. There are several ways to find the best hashtags for you. Another way is to begin brainstorming various ones and type them into the Instagram search bar. As you type, related hashtags also show up. In the example above, coffee is such a popular hashtag that using it might result in more spam comments than you want.

Instead, scroll further down the results to find more niche ones that are targeted and relevant to your audience. Another way to find relatable hashtags is to use a service like All Hashtag to generate related hashtags based on ones that you enter. When you do this, these posts appear in your feed, alongside all the other posts from accounts you follow.

This is a good tactic to use for following industry or community hashtags because it helps you keep tabs on them. The above example uses plantmom as the hashtag. To follow, simply hit that follow button.