Most of you might have some basic understanding of hashtags. After all, they have become a crucial part of social media these days. But many of you might be wondering which Instagram hashtags will build your following. Well, there is no simple answer to that. You need to be smart and learn about hashtags and their use to get the right answer according to your brands’ needs. Read on for more.
The Origins
Not many people are aware that the first user
of hashtags was Chris Messin, who used them on Twitter. Everyone reacted well
to his suggestion, and many other social media users, including Instagram
followers, liked the idea and followed suit. Instagram did better with usage as
it allows a person to use up to 30 hashtags in one post.
Create Suitable Hashtags
When you want to build your following, you need
to create several suitable hashtags that you can use to represent your brand.
Then, you should monitor the performance of each of the hashtags and modify
them as per the data. It would help if you also kept introducing new hashtags every
once in a while, to boost engagement and attract new followers.
How to Keep Track of the Role of Hashtags
To know the role of hashtags and their
usefulness for your brand, you should track the following with a hashtag
tracking tool:
· User engagement
· Total exposure
· Overall brand awareness
· Customer insights
What Stats Say?
· You should know these useful numbers
before you create a hashtag strategy (yes, you will need one).
· Stats say that if you use only one
hashtag on a post, it will get 29% more interactions.
· Similarly, if you use over 11 hashtags
on a post, you will have 79% more interactions.
· Longer hashtags containing 21 to 24
characters usually do better than shorter ones.
· 7 out of 10 hashtags present on
Instagram are brand hashtags.
· Small and medium-sized Instagram
accounts should put hashtags in the caption as it will lead to more engagement.
The engagement might not be as high as small or mid-sized accounts for bigger
Instagram profiles.
· 93% of profiles put hashtags in the caption,
while just 6% put them in the comments section.
How to Gain More Followers with Hashtags
Here are some tips on making your hashtags more
useful for boosting engagement and increasing followers.
Ø Constantly experiment with the
hashtags to see which hashtags gel with your audience and which fall flat.
Ø Never expect all hashtags to be a resounding
success, as it’s almost impossible.
Ø Don’t just use hashtags that are
generally popular. Focus on ones that appeal to the target demographic.
Ø Create one or more branded hashtags
and add them to your bio. You can also add them to your marketing materials and
publicize them just like a logo.
Ø Build up a list of relevant hashtags
for your niche over a few months and put together a shortlist of hashtags on
which you can focus. Take each of them in turn and see how many Instagrammers
have already used them. Then, focus on the more popular hashtags that are relevant
to your target audience.
Read about hashtags that might trend in 2022 here.
Sources:
https://brand24.com/blog/instagram-hashtag-analytics/
https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/hashtags-statistics/
https://influencermarketinghub.com/instagram-hashtag-analytics/