The only thing constant about the world of social networking is that it keeps on changing. Thus, a platform, which was penultimate a few years back might lose its significance amongst the millennial population in modern times. Maybe this is why Facebook has undergone a 29% fall in popularity and Instagram experienced 21% rise in Google searches.
Digital marketers are constantly in the lookout for fresh new trends which can take their advertising campaigns to a whole new level of wow. Instagram hashtags can get your marketing wheel rolling in 2019 by bringing in positive results and that too without the requirement of much investment. Research studies have proved that posts having at least a single Instagram hashtag led to 12.6% more engagement in comparison to posts without the same. Keeping such things in mind, creating hashtags might surely seem like a lucrative option especially if you wish to grow your account. Today we are going to discuss everything in detail about Instagram hashtags and also share our top picks for the 2019 catchwords which can garner more engagement for your posts.
Types Of Instagram Hashtags
Instagram hashtags are available in a plethora of shapes and sizes. You need to develop a clear understanding of the same as a means of coming up with a killer Instagram hashtag strategy. Hashtags can broadly be divided into three categories:
- Branded hashtags are the unique ones which remains exclusive to a particular company. It is mostly used for commercial purposes and can take the form of company name, tagline or some special campaigns. For gaining more Instagram followers, businesses need to make proper utilisation of the branded hashtag in their stories and posts. Consumers have a general tendency of sharing things they love with near and dear ones which in turn helps brands in gaining greater coverage.
- Community hashtags are similar to branded hashtags and link users sharing similar viewpoints on a particular topic. However, they are not necessarily related to business and can bring a broader area under its wings.
- Last but not the least comes campaign hashtags which run for a designated time period. They are ideal for being used inside Instagram stories or live episodes.
Fitness Hashtags
#running, #yoga, #fitness, #fitnessgoals, #fitnesstips, #fitinspiration, #fitstagram, #dedication, #gymspiration, #training
Dog Hashtags
#cute, #puppy, #dogsofinstagram, #puppylove, #dog, #adventuredog, #dogsarefamily, #lifewithdogs, #dogsarethebest, #bestdog, #instadog, #doglover, #hikingwithdogs, #dogtraining
Food Hashtags
#instafood, #yum, #delicious, #foodphotography, #foodporn, #foodgasm, #food, #healthyeating, #healthy, #chef, #nomnomnom, #yummy, #healthyfood
Fashion Hashtags
#fashionista, #model, #look, #fashionshow, #modeling, #style, #instahair, #instamakeup, #instashoes, #trendy, #fashionblogger, #fashionable, #photooftheday, #cute
Travel Hashtags
#travel, #summer2019, #vacation2019, #wanderlust, #adventure, #travelblogger, #travelblog, #traveller, #adventureseeker, #doyoutravel, #wonderfulplaces, #vacationtime, #travelmore, #lovetotravel, #goexplore
Most Popular Hashtags Instagram
#instalove, #instacool, #instagramhub, #instafollow, #followback, #adventure, #instamood, #nofilter, #instalike, #picoftheday, #instagood, #love, #tbt, #igers, #igdaily, #followme, #fun, #happy, #bestoftheday, #beautiful, #smile, #photooftheday, #2019, #likeforlike, #iphonesia
Means Of Using Hashtags For Business Growth
Businesses can leverage on cleverly thought out hashtags for adding inertia to their Instagram marketing efforts. For this, they just need to follow these below mentioned methods:
- Gathering user-generated content is the latest trend of 2019 which can drive up user engagement and also help in gaining newer audiences. For benefitting out of the same, businesses need to come up with an interesting contest asking followers to upload pictures on Instagram and use brand specific hashtags while tagging the post.
- Businesses can establish deeper connection with their followers by giving them a sneak peak of behind the scene footages using a branded Instagram hashtag. This can make them feel more valued as they get to know about new releases and company launches before the general crowd.
- Picking a customized hashtag prior to hosting an event can encourage followers to spread word regarding the same on Instagram. This in turn drives further engagement and participation. All the posts pertaining to the particular event also stays organized in one place for easy reference whenever required.
How To Benefit The Most Out Of Instagram Hashtags
- Primarily, you should keep your hashtags organized by using either an Instagram analytics tool or plain MS Excel. If you decide to proceed with Excel, then you might be required to manually keep track of the entire proceedings in terms of propensity of usage and the ones correlating to the most popular posts. You will slowly be able to establish a direct correlation between usage of certain hashtags and engagement level of popular posts. This in turn can help you in deciding the ones which can work wonders for the brand image of your business. Although an Excel tool is perfect for smaller businesses running on limited budgets, it becomes imperative to switch to a professional model as the business keeps on growing. Banking on the manual system becomes a perilous task especially when you are embedding 20 hashtags in each post and posting three times a day.
- Around 91% of the top brands limit the usage of hashtags to seven or less in each post. However this might not suffice your individual set of business requirements. There is no golden rule of deciding the optimum number of hashtags which can be used in each post. It all boils down to a trial and error method where you need to test different possibilities before finding out the one which works the best in your favour.
- Using smaller-volume hashtags brings along a unique advantage which helps businesses trying to compete in a smaller circle. Using a broad term such as #latesttrends might thus introduce you to a diverse set of possibilities ranging from food to fashion. But if you use specific keywords like #bestburgerindia or #cheapmakeupindia, then you will be able to rank your post higher depending on your particular line of business. You should also try and keep the hashtag as close to your brand interests as possible for best results.
- It becomes easy to generate different types of hashtag ideas by conducting a thorough research on the hashtags used by peers on Instagram. You can make a list containing the names of your competitors and followers coupled with the hashtags used by them in the photos posted. This in turn can be of great help in understanding the trends followed by influencers and others who have made it large in the dynamic world of social media.
- While typing in a particular hashtag in the search bar of Instagram, related hashtags also appear in the scroll-down menu. The related hashtags are also delivered on the next page after clicking on a particular hashtag. This serves as a simple yet effective means of presenting you with longer list of hashtags which can be tried out over time.
Things To Consider While Dealing With Instagram Hashtags
- With around one billion active users registered in the Instagram portal, and 50 million active users being added to the family every quarter, Instagram can definitely offer you great possibilities in terms of getting the word spread. However, you cannot consider everyone as your target audience and need to bring down your area of interest. This is exactly where the power of hashtags come in to play. Suppose you have a food delivery service in India. Although you can opt for general hashtags as that of #Food having around 2 million publications, it won’t be of much help as users from around the world shall be looking at the same and it will not be possible for you to send food to a completely different country. This is why you need to be specific about the hashtag you use. You can also target your speciality like #glutenfree or maybe #ketodiet for catering to specific niches of audience.
- You might have noticed that the text formatting of user name and hashtags is a bit different from that of the remaining body. This serves as an intuitive marketing tactic which assists in creating a visual differentiation and achieving greater readability of publications.
- One of the biggest problems faced by modern day business houses is that they fail to compute the ultimate benefits of their actions on different social media platforms. This however becomes an extremely easy drill coupled with the right kind of tool and Instagram hashtags can help out significantly with the same. But for maximum benefit, you need to understand the intricacies of using these hashtags for garnering maximum response out of the same.
- Using irrelevant hashtags is a complete no-no even if it seems to be in vogue. Thus, if you are running a food business, you should stick to the hashtags which define your area of operation rather than spinning the content around trendy hashtags of fashion or maybe travel niches.
- The hashtags chosen by you needs to be such that they can be remembered easily. Long hashtags like #iloveblackhighheelswithpointededges hardly makes any sense on being read although it specifies a particular ‘black high heel with pointed edges.’ Users will be left utterly confused by reading these hashtags which is why you need to keep it short and simple like #blackheels, #pointededges and #loveforshoes.
- Advertising cannot be thought of as an exact science. You will thus be required to conduct necessary planning and perform routine tests to find out whether it works out in your favour. Something which worked out for your peer might not work out for you which is why you need to keep up with the trial and error process unless you find the particular hashtag or combination of hashtags which suits you best.
- While writing hashtags, you need to use a healthy combination of both upper and lowercase alphabets as this significantly facilitates identification and reading. This is especially helpful if you wish to stand out of the crowd comprising of innumerable publications.
- There was a time when the maximum number of permissible hashtag per post was limited to three. But things have changed currently and Instagram allows the usage of 30 hashtags in every post. You now need to try out different permutations and combinations in terms of content variety and time of the day. Herein you need to measure the result of every single publication and each hashtag to define the end results in a better manner.
- Instagram users often commit the grave mistake of using incorrect spelling while writing hashtags. But this might prove to be suicidal for your brand as it reflects a poor image in front of your end audience.
Conclusion
Hashtags are extremely powerful tools which can go a long way towards building a recognizable and more positive brand image. With 95 million pictures posted on a daily basis to Instagram, it might get difficult to deliver the right content to the right audience. Hashtags can come to your rescue in such a case by luring in more traffic towards your post provided you plan it all in the right manner.
