Using Hashtags on Instagram

Instagram hashtags; you either love them or hate them, use them or avoid them like the plague. Whatever your opinions on using hashtags on Instagram, they are a highly effective tool for business accounts. That's because they:

• attract new followers
• help categorise your posts into topics
• are easily searchable
• are clickable
• can be followed

Today we're taking an in-depth look into using hashtags on Instagram to help grow your social media presence and get more website traffic.

10 Types of Instagram Hashtags

There are ten types of popular Instagram hashtags people and businesses use when posting. They are:

1. Branded Hashtags
2. Niche Hashtags
3. Product or Service Hashtags
4. Special Event or Seasonal Hashtags
5. Emoji Hashtags
6. Daily Hashtags
7. Industry Instagram Community Hashtags
8. Acronym Hashtags
9. Location Hashtags
10. Relevant Phrase Hashtags

We'll take a look at each hashtag type in turn.

Branded Hashtags - a hashtag you create yourself to promote your own brand; #websitebuilder #bestwebsitebuilder

Niche Hashtags - here you show followers how you fit into your industry; #mumblogger #foodblogger

Product or Service Hashtags - hashtags which explain your products or services using basic keywords; #babyblanket #tutus

Special Event or Seasonal Hashtags - hashtags which refer to the seasons or holidays: #waitangiday #christmas 

Emoji Hashtags - hashtags which use emojis within words or phrases, or on their own; #????

Daily Hashtags - hashtags which use days of the week; #mondayblues #techtuesday

Industry Instagram Community Hashtags - hashtags of communities on Instagram to help you find or join them: #mumsofinstagram #craftersofinstagram

Acronym Hashtags - acronyms for common phrases; #YOLO you only live one #TGIF

Location Hashtags  - hashtags to refer to the location of your photo; #auckland #NZ

Relevant Phrase Hashtags - hashtags to help connect to existing communities, a combination of product, niche and community hashtags; #amwriting

How Many Hashtags Should You Use?

Is there such a thing as having too many hashtags on Instagram? Yes! Anything up to 30 hashtags can be used per Instagram post. If you add more, then your caption or comment will not be posted. But there is a fine balance to be had when choosing how many to use for your business. Some businesses find that less is best, and this is backed up by between one to three hashtags are most commonly used by businesses. 11 is a number that most social media pros agree is beneficial. However you are best to do some testing and find out what number of hashtags works best for your business.

How to Choose Which Hashtags to Use

As mentioned earlier, people search Instagram for hashtags that bring up posts they want to follow or learn more about. So it makes sense to include the relevant ones with your content. You can get a good idea of the types of hashtags you could use by:

• checking out what hashtags your competition are using
• see which hashtags your audience are using
• find out which hashtags influencers in your industry are using
• use hashtag finding tools to get ideas of popular hashtags to use
• do some hashtag searches within Instagram to check if a particular hashtag is relevant to your business or not

It is best to stick with industry relevant hashtags rather than common ones. Something like #followme may get you some new followers, but they're not going to be the sort of followers that will end up being your customer. 

Where to Add Hashtags & How to Hide Them

There are three main areas you could choose to add your hashtags. The first is in the main post itself, just under the text. The second is also in the main post, but far down below so that they cannot be seen when scrolling. The third is in the comments of the post itself. Most research up to today has shown that there is not a huge difference in results based upon hashtag placement. However, anecdotally we have heard that some businesses only get results when they use a specific location. 

So we're suggesting that where you put your hashtags should come down to personal choice (such as where you best like them) and by your own testing and observations as to the results you get when using in each location.

Examples of Instagram Hashtags By NZ Businesses

We asked members of our free NZ only networking group Business Networking NZ to share examples of their hashtag uses on their Instagram accounts. Here are some of their example Instagram posts and links to their accounts so you can see more of their hashtag usage in action.

For further help with using Instagram, we suggest taking a read of our articles:

• Free Instagram Analytic Tools
• How to Write Brilliant Instagram Captions
• Instagram Hashtags: What Are They & How Do You Use Them?