Everybody knows it. Using Instagram hashtags is a fabulous way to reach new people. People still use them and they work.
And recently, when search rolled out on Instagram, hashtags in captions also began to act as keywords and they boost the search reach of your posts.
So, they are useful on both fronts. And that’s why in this article, I am going to reveal to you how to use Instagram hashtags the right way so that you maximize your Instagram reach, engagement, traffic, and sales.
So are you ready to begin? If so, let’s dive in…
1. Use Only Relevant Hashtags
The key to getting the most reach out of Instagram hashtags is to use relevant hashtags. That’s because of two reasons.
First of all, you only want to reach your dream customers and they are not searching for irrelevant hashtags.
That means when your post is going to appear on them, it is going to be shown to the wrong people.
Second, as I mentioned above, it is going to be shown to the wrong people.
That means there is no way your post is going to perform. One of the KEY parts of high-performing content is relevancy.
So, if your article is going to be shown to the wrong people, then you’re hardly going to get any results.
For example, if you are selling candles, you don’t want to use hashtags like #realestate but you want to use hashtags like #candle #jumbocandle or #candleseller.
It is super important that you use relevant hashtags and it is a crucial part of the second step to use Instagram hashtags the right way…
2. Create A Hashtag Strategy
What I’m about to show you is really advanced and you’ll need the right tool to make it work.
My personal favorite is Flick and there is no other hashtag tool that will let you get the results like this one.
However, it is possible to do all you need to create it manually.
So, how does it look like?
To get the best results you should need to create 5 sets of 30 Instagram hashtags following this strategy:
- Pick 5 hashtags with a 20% lower engagement rate than the one on your posts (If your posts get an average of 1,000 likes, pick hashtags where posts and reels on the top page have an average of 800 likes.)
- Pick 20 hashtags with a similar engagement rate than is the one on your posts (If your posts get an average of 1,000 likes, pick hashtags where posts and reels on the top page have an average of 1,000 likes.)
- Pick 5 hashtags with a 20% higher engagement rate than the one on your posts (If your posts get an average of 1,000 likes, pick hashtags where posts and reels on the top page have on average of 1,200 likes.)
Again, you want to follow this strategy to create 5 Instagram hashtag sets of 30 hashtags.
Once you have them, you are going to switch between those 5 sets with every post that you share.
When every post that you share has a different hashtag set, you’re going to be able to reach a broader audience of people.
3. Measure Performance
The biggest mistake most people make is creating Instagram hashtag sets and then forgetting about them.
That’s not how you’re going to get results. You want to consistently track the performance of hashtags to know if they work or not.
If the set doesn’t work, then replace it with a new one. Then you track it again and if it works you use it.
If it doesn’t, try again until you get a hit.
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Filip Konecny 