Hashtags, Hashtags, & More Hashtags
Whether you’re trying to make a post on Instagram to flaunt your sleek new outfit or simply get more views for your business on LinkedIn, hashtags can work a world of benefit for you. Selecting the right hashtags is an art form mastered by a few. Read on as we get into the nitty-gritty of how you can make hashtags work for you.
Why Use Hashtags?
Hashtags not only help you reach a bigger audience, but they can also help you reach the RIGHT audience by allowing social media algorithms to sniff out your content.
Suppose you’re making content on Instagram for a Tourism agency. Say that content’s a video of the mountains in Switzerland. What hashtags would you use in this scenario and what will you get out of them?
First, you want to use what we call a “king hashtag.” These tags have a large following and are usually broad descriptions of the content you are posting about. So in the case of our Tourism agency’s Instagram post, #Tourism and #Travel will work nicely. Then you want to narrow it down a little: #Switzerland for example. Then even narrower, something more specific: #AlpsMountains which is a mountain range that spreads across Switzerland. Then you can add a hashtag for the kind of audience you want to attract, so supposing your agency is in the Middle East, #MiddleEast or #Arabs are both relevant tags. Lastly, you can add hashtags of things that are related to your content subject matter which is travel, so #Photography, #Airplane, and #Nature are all relevant hashtags. By doing this you have effectively categorized your content and made it easier to find for people searching for your specific content, or even things more broadly related to it.
How Many Should You Use?
Instagram has a hashtag capacity of 30 that you cannot exceed. Ideally, you should be exhausting all of them. Most people don’t, fearing that too many hashtags can be an eyesore. Luckily, hashtags don’t necessarily need to be included in the Instagram post itself, but can also count if they’re included in the form of a comment.
Social Media Growth Tactics Using Hashtags
Suppose your Instagram account has 10,000 followers. Ideally, you would want to use hashtags with a follower count lower than your own follower count. That way you can dominate the feed of that hashtag since your posts will likely have higher engagements than the other accounts using the same hashtag. Therefore your post will naturally appear as one of the top results when that hashtag is searched; this is opposed to using a hashtag with around 100,000 followers where competition is tense and your chances of reaching the top are dim. In other words, you can use the hashtag #TravelSudan when the hashtag has a follower count of 1,000, and your account has 10,000 followers. Followers who will help propel your posts to the top. Once you’ve converted a decent number of followers from that hashtag, you can move on to dominate bigger and better hashtags with the strong backing you’ll receive from your ever-increasing platoon of followers acquired through your constant crusading of new hashtags.
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