Many people ask about optimizing Instagram hashtags to make their campaigns popular and accomplish business objectives. Hashtags are becoming very common with everybody using them for one reason or the other on the internet. However, few businesses are employing this powerful tool in their marketing strategies despite its powerful influences on the market. It time you learn How to optimize your Instagram Hashtags for business success.
Every business needs a well-formulated hashtag strategy if they are to reap the full benefits of the tool. It is imperative that you decide what your goals are, the post content, and how often you plan to post. However, if you are not using hashtags the right way, this will take a longer time for your objectives to be achieved.
What are hashtags?
These are keywords prefaced by# for example #Instagram. When used on the social media, these are live links that when clicked on will take you to a feed of all the other similar hashtag users, therefore, providing a natural connection to your primary audience.
Almost every social media uses hashtags except or LinkedIn. Using hashtags makes your content discoverable to a large audience and provides a connection to those of the same interest.
How to optimize your Instagram Hashtags
- Wisely choose your hashtags
Think of clever ways to associate your product with something people talk about. Think outside the box and be ingenious. - Make it short
More concise hashtags make the most impact with readers. Choose something catchy and exciting or a combination of hashtags, for example, #SMB#Instagram so as to increase your target audience. Long hashtags will not get you many visitors so make it as short as possible without losing its interesting touch. - Tweet events
Use lively hashtags for events to help connect with the industry leaders who may take notice of your business and make you successful. - Create your event
Creating an event doesn’t mean you organize a convention. Create a contest, giveaway or an invitation to have lunch or tour your business. Organize anything that will gain the interest of your core clients. Use popular hashtags like #swag, #freebie, #giveaway and #contest. - Join a chat
Engaging in industry chats exposes you to influencers and other relevant people even if your competitor hosts the chat. There is never a wrong time to meet new people and connect with new friends. You can also start a chat and invite the industry experts to share their wisdom. - Automate
When you automatically add the hashtag users to a list, follow other users of the hashtag on snapchat and cross-post the hashtagged messages across social media sites, the message will reach a large audience.
Three things not to do
- Don’t insert a promo into a tragedy
People have a habit of flocking to a story where something horrible happened. This is the worst place to use your hashtag even though the audience will be enormous; it may damage the reputation of your business. The hashtag can be hijacked in the crisis and diverted to an entirely different purpose causing irreparable harm to your brand. - Don’t go overboard
Use the 140 characters to share your message wisely. Don’t overuse hashtags, one or two will do and won’t annoy your target audience. - Keep away from used keywords
When you use a keyword already associated with another brand or business, it will not get you the desired audience. Create your hashtag and make it popular.
If you want to break away from following trending hashtag tactics and create your own, here is a successful Instagram hashtag strategy.
Successful Instagram hashtag strategy
- Choose brand-specific hashtags
Create unique hashtags that represent what you do or a unique identifier for your business or brand. The unique hashtags you already use on other social media accounts can be implemented in Instagram too. They should be easy for the visitor to remember and include them in almost all your Instagram posts that relate to your business. However, posting a photo of your family does not have to include the hashtag. - Identify industry-related hashtags
There is always some variation in industries hence their hashtags. You can find them out there and use them as long as they resonate with your business and industry. Find out which hashtags your competitors are using. Only pick that which works for your business. - Combine less common and popular hashtags
This strategy will give you access to many clients while at the same time incorporating a less common hashtag that will make your post stay longer in the search results. This will ensure you get the best of both worlds and stay live longer. Your post visibility will significantly improve and target your audience to meet business goals.
Most people are using popular hashtags to increase their posts appearance in popular searches. To avoid doing what everyone does, you need to combine two or more hashtags like #instagrammarketing. - Determine the number of hashtags to use
When you use too many hashtags in one post, you will make the audience run away. Saying too much will send a message of desperation to your customers, and no one likes a desperate business. 5-10 specific hashtags will make a successful hashtag strategy. Always keep it under ten hashtags for each post to make reading the post easier for your audience. Skillfully incorporate the hashtags into the sentences to make it flow but if this is not possible; just list them at the end of the post. - Have a list of hashtags
This list can be created right on your mobile device in a notepad of your choice. You can have several notes for different marketing strategies to easily find them whenever you want to post something. From here, you can just copy and paste the hashtags to your caption whenever you post something on Instagram. This means you don’t have to type them out each time and you will not make spelling mistakes or forget any of your hashtags when making posts.
Have Fun #hashtagging
With these tips, you now know how to optimize your Instagram Hashtags for maximum targeted reach and business growth. It is very easy to drive traffic to your posts and business as a whole with properly created hashtags.