Get noticed on Instagram with hashtags

May 15, 2019
Get noticed on Instagram with hashtags

Hashtags have always been a crucial part of social media. It dominates the Twitter realm and is becoming ever more popular on Instagram. For the majority of users, they perceive hashtags as expressing thoughts or simple additions to their captions – but for tech savvy businesses, hashtags is a great means of brand exposure.

So why should you use hashtags on Instagram?

Connect Your Post with Others

Just like Twitter, hashtags on Instagram act as a link that automatically connects you to other users. They would appear in the search results that are relevant to your campaign which is why it’s crucial to add them to your posts. 

In many cases, users click on hashtags they are interested in. This can either be through searching the intended word/phrase or simply viewing it in the discovery section of Instagram. They help continue or contribute to a topic of discussion and allows businesses and consumers to interact with one another.

Get More Engagement

One of the great benefits of using hashtags is that it can connect you to potential customers, including ones that haven’t heard of your brand. With the right hashtags, you can link your post and page to a much wider audience with similar interests. This will potentially drive further engagement to your post and ultimately generate a greater reach for your name.

Choosing hashtags that work!

Using Instagram avidly will make you aware that hash-tagging is a very common element amongst the platform. It allows you to create one word tags to sentences depending on the message you want to publicise and the audience you want to reach. That being said, it’s important to consider exactly what audience your post is intended to communicate with.

Branded

These are custom hashtags that are consistent throughout all of the brands promotions. They encourage users to actively use their hashtags through sharing and tagging in order to create their own community. These hashtags are anything related to the company and can be recognisable to the public.

A great example of branded hashtags on Instagram would be Puma’s #DoYou campaign. The sports brand aimed to empower woman through sport and so this hashtag was associated in all their promotions.

Descriptive

These types of hashtags are a way of adding more depth to your Instagram posts. People no longer use one word hashtags – they now use a more descriptive tag consisting of several words. This not only means your post won’t get lost in a sea of millions with one word hashtags, but if used correctly it can target the exact audience intended. 

Some effective examples of descriptive hashtags would be #ShopItLikeItsHot, #WomanswearAW #HairOfInstagram or #TheLuxuryLife. These all have a common theme of being descriptive enough to be discovered in a more detailed market segment than a general post.

Locational

This type of hashtag does exactly what it is intended to do. If a brand is looking to communicate with a certain market geographically, they simply need to hashtag the intended location and will be able to communicate with them. This can be great ways for your brand to expand its reach into other places and reach a potentially new market. 

Seasonal

Very much like locational, it does exactly what it means. Seasonal trends such as #Autumn, #Summer and even holiday seasons #Christmas and #Halloween are some prime examples of this. Seasonal trending can be really effective for brands to capture a huge target market. Relating your brand to any of these will generate a greater reach for your profile and ultimately drive more traffic and engagement to your page.

Industry

Industry hashtags are the most relevant to any business wanting to grown their audience within their field of work. They can be anything related to the promotion of your brand and the market surrounding. For example, if you are a tech company, you many want to hashtag #software, #instatech and #development. These will communicate to your targeted niche market.

Bio Hashtagging

Even though bio hash tagging doesn’t promote your brand on the Instagram discovery page, it is something many brands utilise to bring awareness of specific trends they want to highlight when landing on their page. If a brand is trying to push a certain trend on their page, by putting their chosen hashtag in their bio it would attract more users to try the hashtag or click through to see what it means.

For help with your social media strategy including great hashtags please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.