Instagram hashtags, how to find the right ones?

Here is a fact: an Instagram post with at least one hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than a post without a hashtag. Hashtags are powerful and are essential in Instagram’s sorting process. Chosen carefully, they can help your business reach your target audience, increase engagement and develop your brand image. 

How to use hashtags for your business

It is important to keep your hashtags organised. An excel sheet keeping track of those you use and how they correlate to your most popular posts is already a good start. If you have a more advanced social media team, you can work with analytical tools like Iconosquare which will provide you support on which hashtags can reach the most people. 

How many hashtags should you use per post?

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post but that doesn’t mean you should necessarily use them all. 91% of top brands use seven or fewer hashtags per post. You will have to test how many work best for you and find your ideal number. 

Hashtags relevance

Hashtag are a powerful tool to allow you to be seen by the right people. Using irrelevant hashtags or using always the same hashtags for all your posts won’t work. Posting repetitive content is clearly not recommended by Instagram community guidelines

Using trending or popular hashtags is a very good way to grow your audience. You can do this in either finding trending hashtags related to your industry or by using trending hashtags that aren’t directly related to your industry but to hot topics such as #royalwedding, #worldcup for recent events for instance. 

Also, remember to use hashtags in your Insta stories and study your competitors and top influencers!