Yeah! May we entered a series. After presenting the advantages of Instagram for the benefit of small businesses, after we told you about the myths associated with this social network, it's his turn. Majesty The hashtag (or in other words - the symbol #). Using hashtags on Instagram will make you more easily discoverable by users and therefore reward you with more popularity.
How works #The hashtag и What allows?
The use of hashtags comes from Twitter, and then it conquered the other social networks, because with its introduction we can follow topics that interest us and search for content.
В Instagram hashtags have a lot of potential because companies realize that their success is largely due to the adequate use of hashtags and the creation of their own.
Any image or video we post on Instagram may be accompanied by a short text and/or a combination of hashtags. The hashtag's role is to organize and categorize visual content that optimizes and leads to us.
For example, we at Proper.media use the hashtag #socialmedia, #marketing, depending on which content category we would like you to find us in. If your business is travel related, you might use #travel #DestinationName #sunset (#sunset) or another word that describes the content of the photos you share.
By using these hashtags, what you post will appear to all users who view photos from a given destination, even if they haven't followed your company yet.
And if you add additional hashtags, you'll increase the chance that your photos will reach a wider audience.
But This no е Everything!
The Instagram hashtag is not lost. It stays on the platform, and when someone shares their photo on Facebook, for example, the hashtag is posted there with it. This means your content has a better chance of being found by other fans who may not see the image or who are searching through the Facebook Search Graph. This is useful for businesses that have set up an Instagram account recently and have a small number of followers. This is how the hashtag allows you to reach new people.
Good #hashtag practices
Regular Instagram users see the hashtag as an essential tool to communicate and enhance their experience on the web. Marketers (like us), on the other hand, see hashtags as a way to create community, increase brand attention and expand business reach.
Admitted errors
When we are new to Instagram we usually make some mistakes, which are of course not fatal, but they are essential. One of them is using too many hashtags. This risks shifting the focus away from your core business. Another mistake is inappropriate hashtags that don't match what you do.
Posting a photo or video should always include text. You are free to use 30 hashtags, but this is not necessary - 11 hashtags is recommended. This recommendation comes from study, made among users who have 1000 or more followers.
bufferapp.com
Furthermore, content rife with hashtags can be considered a desperate marketing ploy that will not generate benefits.
We know that using popular hashtags proves to be a temptation to reach new followers. For example, one of the most used is #love - has been applied to more than 184 million photos. But imagine if you are an accountant and you use #love?! You certainly won't reach the right people for you, will you?
Some of the most used hashtags like #food and #fashion may be important for your business, so you should include them in your posts. Still, users would ignore the ones that go overboard and rather create spam. #KeepInMind
Several known examples For successful use at hashtag
Big brands and companies that have achieved success in Instagram, use popular hashtags sparingly. Never use ones that are irrelevant to their content. More interestingly even - they create new hashtags and trends themselves so that it all benefits them.
A good example of this is the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when Nike published a number of inspiring photos of children playing in disadvantaged Brazilian neighborhoods. The only hashtag they used was #justdoit. This clearly shows that Nike want to enforce their own hashtag and not take chances with using additional hashtags. If you decide to search for inspirational sports photos, try their hashtag.
Another example is organic food and gourmet giant Whole Foods Market, which uses one or two hashtags for its photos to describe a dish or place. For example, "Breakfast for chaps! Oatmeal topped with #chia seeds, goji berries, kiwi, blueberries, bee pollen..." Using the ingredient chia as a hashtag puts Whole Foods Market's content right in front of their target audience's eyes.
Starbucks on the other hand believe in using 3 to 5 hashtags to reach their followers. They also frequently use hashtags #glutenfreeto benefit and not all related to coffee.
What Yes remember?
The hashtag in Instagram is an essential tool that allows us to categorize and organize our photos and videos. If we don't use it, it means that practically the content we share is private because it won't be seen by others searching for keywords and phrases.
Marketers should embrace hashtags as a strength, but should be cautious in overuse.
If you have any questions or think there's anything else you'd like to know about Instagram, don't hesitate to ask us. We're open to dialogue and are always online.
Here we are: Facebook, LinkedIn, office@proper.media.
