How to Use Hashtags on Instagram Business Account
Hashtags can be powerful. An Instagram post created using hashtags can bring in more engagement by reaching your target audience and by attracting followers in your niche.
| Hashtags are more like filters.
They are, basically, Instagram’s sorting mechanism. It helps in categorising your posts.
With over 95 million images posted on Instagram on an everyday basis, the algorithm can't deliver your content to the right people. By adding the relevant hashtags, you’re essentially helping the algorithm to get your post discovered by individuals interested in knowing about it.
However, reckless or frequent use of hashtags can be inefficient and pointless.
Organise your hashtags
To analyse which hashtag works best for your brand, it is important that you keep track of the hashtags used in the past. You can use the Instagram analytics tool or even an Excel sheet to accomplish this. This will make it easier for you to compare between the posts with the most engagement and the hashtags used to filter it your target audience. Thus, you will be able to identify the hashtags that work best for your brand.
Determine the number of hashtags per post
If you look at the most successful brands on Instagram - they use - maybe seven or fewer hashtags per post. Does this mean seven is your lucky number, too? Not necessarily.
It took several months for the Planet Media team to come up with the number that worked the best for us. During the initial days, it ranged between seven and twenty-five. However, as the months passed, it got reduced to the low 20s since Planet Media posts have been more successful in that range.
Test and analyse to discover your magic number.
Use specific hashtags
It is always better to use hashtags that are specific and of a smaller volume.
For example, hashtag #SEO can bring you pictures of motivational quotes, food, restaurants, memes, before-and-after-hairstyle pictures and so on, because it's too broad. That is why, using specific hashtags is a good idea, especially for a business account.
It is wiser to keep your hashtags specific to your brand or the topic of your Instagram post. For example, use #SEOTips in your post if your post is about SEO.
If you are still in doubt, research what your competitors and influencers in your industry are hashtagging.
Follow your brand hashtag
You can use your own brand hashtag for the purpose of social media marketing. Follow your brand hashtag (for example, #PlanetMedia) on Instagram so that you can find anyone who talks about your brand and can use it as an opportunity to connect with them.
Create a brand campaign hashtag
This is the trickiest part. Not only do you have to come up with a hashtag, but the hashtag should also be clever and funny in order to be memorable.
For example, Red Bull encouraged its users to post a picture of them featuring Red Bull with the hashtag campaign, #putacanonit.
See, clever.
So, build a solid hashtag strategy for your business to take your brand to the people who you think will be interested in your products and services.
Happy hashtagging!