Are you using hashtags strategically on Instagram? These hashtags tips can help improve your overall Instagram strategy.

If you’re not familiar with hashtags, they are what help your audience find your content, but if you’re making it impossible for the right people to find you, then your hashtags don’t matter.

Keep reading for ways to improve your hashtag strategy and reach your ideal audience.

Get in the mind of your ideal audience

You want to tailor your content and your hashtags to what your ideal audience is looking for on social media. This way, as they’re scrolling through Instagram looking for inspiration, your content appears in their searches.

For example, a real estate agent might use hashtags related to homeownership, homes on the market, home decor, dream kitchens (or other room-specific inspirations), and homeownership tips on relevant posts to help catch the eye of those on the market for houses and looking for inspiration for their future space. By understanding which hashtags their audience is using, they can choose the right ones to use on their posts.

Be mindful of a hashtag’s popularity

The goal of using hashtags in your posts is to be seen by your ideal audience. There are two ways that occurs – by reaching the “top posts” for a hashtag or by showing in the “most recent” posts.

Knowing these two goals, it’s important to consider how a hashtag’s post volume impacts your chances of these.

Hashtag Top 9 Tips

If a hashtag has a large post volume (above 1M or even about 500K-750K), then there is a lot of competition to reach the top posts for the hashtag. Typically, the top 9 for these posts gets taken up by large accounts that have naturally high impressions and engagement. The odds of a newer or smaller account holding a coveted top 9 spot are more limited, though it can happen.

For hashtags with lower post volume (10K – 500K), your likelihood of becoming a top post is higher. Naturally, the lower the volume, the higher your chances of becoming a top post.

That being said, if you start using hashtags with extremely low volume (under 5K posts), the chances of people searching using those hashtags are more limited. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that there is some volume to signify relevance.

Recent Post Considerations

Unlike the top posts which factor in a post’s performance, the recent posts are just what they sound like – a chronological feed of the recent posts utilizing a hashtag.

The higher a hashtag’s post volume, the more posts a hashtag typically gains per minute (assuming it’s still relevant and avticely being used). Therefore, the higher the volume, the shorter timeframe you’ll show in the recent posts.

It’s important to use hashtags where you’ll get visibility on the recent posts for a reasonable length of time. For hashtags with 1M+ uses, you’ll have a second or 30 seconds of visibility (and that’s if you use hashtags in your post caption instead of the comment), whereas hashtags with lower volume will allow you minutes, hours, or more depending on the popularity.

A healthy mix for hashtag volume

For smaller accounts, I recommend a healthy mix of hashtags in the 5K-25K range, 25K-250K, and one or two above 250K. This helps allow the largest chance to reach the top 9 hashtags without using hashtags that have such low volume they aren’t viewed.

As your account grows, the volume for hashtags you use can follow suit.

Change up your hashtags

By changing your hashtags, you remind the Instagram algorithm that you’re a real account. If you use the same hashtags on every post, you risk backlash being flagged (on the backend – Instagram won’t warn you) and your reach may be reduced.

That being said, saving a few hashtags into sets as starting points for your different content types can be a helpful way for you to track your most impactful hashtags (just don’t use the same hashtag sets on every post).

For each of the content buckets you typically post within, create a shortlist of hashtags you might use. This can be 5-10 key hashtags that tend to be relevant on any post within this content bucket. Then, based on your specific post’s content, add in a handful more to the individual post.

This not only helps ensure you’re changing up hashtags but also saves you time finding hashtags when creating new posts.

Keeping track of all your hashtags can be difficult. To help make it easier, I’ve made a FREE hashtag organizer to help speed up your process. Get your free copy, here.

Follow relevant hashtags

Did you know that Instagram allows you to follow hashtags?

When you go to a hashtag’s explore page, there’s a follow button at the top. When you follow a hashtag, as you scroll through your feed, occasionally posts from hashtags you follow will be included in your scrolling. This offers an easy way to organically engage with potential followers.

Think of the commonly used hashtags by your audience. Keep in mind that while tip 1 talked about finding the hashtags they’re searching, this time you want to think about hashtags they’re using on their posts.

Once you find some common hashtags that your audience uses, follow them.

Then, as you scroll through your feed, engage with these posts as they come up. By engaging with accounts you don’t follow, they’re more likely to check out your page to see who you are. If they resonate with your content, they may convert into a follower.

Tools to help your hashtag management

While you can do your hashtag research and management manually, there are some tools that can help streamline the process. Here are some of my favorites:

• Smarthash: Smarthash allows you to manage your hashtags and track their performance in one place.
• Hashtag Organizer: With my free hashtag organizer, you can easily track your top hashtags.
• Airtable: With Airtable you can manage all of your social media content, hashtags included! Plus, if you download my free hashtag organizer, you can easily adapt it to fit within Airtable’s seamless platform.

Get started with these hashtag tips for Instagram!

When it comes to hashtags, the important this is to just get started! As you use them more, you can monitor what’s working, which ones your dream followers are using, and refine your buckets.

Need more help? Don’t forget to download your free hashtag organizer.