Hashtags play an essential role in the structure and success of your posts and content. With the proper use of hashtags, as well as positive performance in engagement, your content will be organically rewarded by the Instagram algorithm.
The first question to tackle is to consider how many hashtags should be used in a post, and there are two camps that social media managers fall into regarding this. One side recommends only using so many hashtags; some people might recommend 3-5, 5-10, or even use none at all! On the other hand, there are social media managers that use all 30 of the allowed hashtags in every single post. So, what is the acceptable amount?
The answer is simple- do what feels right for your brand! The area of emphasis in hashtags is not the quantity, but rather the quality. Using hashtags that pertain to your niche will help to connect your content to the people that are looking to digest it. So, the follow-up question to this is...
What makes a quality hashtag?
These are some indicators that you can research to understand the usability of a hashtag.
Amount of Hits. I use the term "hit" to define how many times the hashtag has already been used. You can see the number of hits a hashtag has gotten already by searching the tag. There is a range of acceptable hits in which a hashtag should lie; it shouldn't have too many hits, but also not too few. Sun Empress operates within a range of no less than 100k to no more than 2 million. Yeah, that's a big range, but choosing multiple hashtags with different numbers of hits will help ensure you reach a wide array of viewers.
Associated Content. Take a look at the content that is already associated with the hashtag. Is this the type of content that you want your posts being mixed up with? Doing this type of research will be a strong indicator of whether you should use this hashtag within your post.
Starting the Search
If you're looking for a starting point for hashtag research, these search topics might be helpful!
Location Relevance. Using a location in a hashtag will ensure that you are connecting with people within your physical area of influence. For some brands, this might be a challenge, as they do not have a physical location, or they're not located in an area that has large enough hashtags.
A solution to this would be to use a tag that is more specific to the state you live in, or even the country! This still allows brands to specify a general area of service.
An example would be that you are a small jewelry company that operates fully out of your home in a tiny town in Ohio. Specific, I know, but there are some businesses out there like myself that are in this situation! What hashtags could be used to help a small company like this reach a broader audience, concerning the business location?
A search of the term "Ohio" on Instagram brings us many great options! #Ohio itself has 13.8million hits, which might be too broad with too many hits for our liking. On the other hand, #ohiogram, aka Ohio + Instagram, only has 773k hits and has a great variety of appropriate content already associated with it!
Side note: this tip applies to geo-tagging content as well. If your business does not have a physical location that can be located with Instagram maps, using a geo-tag that demonstrates your general location can be used instead. Returning to our Ohio jewelry example, using the geo-tag for "Ohio" allows you to still associate your post with a location.
Industry-Specific Keywords. Whatever your brand's industry is, there are certain services or other keywords that can be used to bring in viewers who are looking for content in your brand's niche. Returning to the Ohio jewelry example, consider the keywords that might be used by this business' ideal audience. #Jewelry has 112 MILLION uses. While it might be appealing to use a hashtag with so many hits, it's important to understand that any posts that use that hashtag might quickly become lost amongst all the other content using the same hashtag. Continue to search through keyword-related hashtags and find the ones that both have an adequate amount of hits as well as align with your branding.
Sticking with our hypothetical business, jewelry-related hashtags with appropriate hit counts and wording would include #jewelryfashion (750k), #jewelryjunkie (522k), and #jewelryhandmade (261k).
Bringing these two things together creates a super specific hashtag that will bring you the exact audience you're looking for!
The Perfection Formula: Location Relevance + Industry Keyword.
Bringing these two concepts together creates the perfect formula for finding your target audience. Not every location and niche is going to line up to create a hashtag that checks all the previously discussed boxes, so this hashtag type is an exception to the minimum hit count. #Ohiojewelry is both industry AND location specific, which hits the sweet spot! This hashtag has almost 7k hits, demonstrating that it has already gained traction in that area of the niche; but again, this will not be the case with every hashtag that is similarly formatted.
Explore the hashtags that are related to both your location AND niche, and discover what is possible through hashtagging your posts. Using these keywords will help fast-track your content on the explore pages of your potential clients. Ensure the hashtags you use have substantial hits with relevant content, and the icing on the hashtag cake is tying in location and keyword relevance.
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