Creating an Effective Instagram Hashtag Strategy

Do you have an Instagram hashtag strategy? Hashtags tend to seem really mysterious to many business owners. They tend to leave more questions than answers, and it can feel like a trial and error strategy. However, we are here today to share a few tips and strategies for developing your Instagram hashtag strategy. It is important to note that your social media strategy cannot solely be hashtags. Hashtags are a part of your social strategy, but not THE strategy. If you create poor content and have a great hashtags, you won’t see results. Quality content will always prevail! So it is very important for you to develop a quality social strategy that includes hashtags, but not one that is reliant on hashtags. With that being said, let’s dive right into Chic Influencer’s tips and strategies!

Create a Clear Brand Message

First, before you ever start developing your hashtag strategy, it is crucial for you to have a clear brand message. With great hashtags and an undefined brand message, you won’t find the results you’re looking for. When people visit your social accounts, is it clear what you do? Is it easy to understand how you serve your audience?

People tend to get obsessed with hashtags, but easily forget how important brand messaging and serving their audience is. Think of your social strategy like a cake! You must have all the ingredients and the right instructions for the cake to turn out. With just some of the ingredients and little instructions, and you’ll find it’s hard to make a cake. Hashtags are an ingredient to your social strategy, but they aren’t the main way to see success. Before ever developing your hashtag strategy, you MUST develop a clear brand message for your audience!

Serving your audience with quality content will always produce more results than any other social strategy out there!

Finding the Right Hashtags

Second, when you’re trying to figure out the right hashtags for your business, you want to think about what you search on Instagram. If someone wanted to find your content, what would they search for? What are some keywords that describe your business?

You can easily see if a hashtag fits your brand by doing a little research. Search the hashtag and scroll through the posts under that particular hashtag. If you feel like the posts within that hashtag align also with what you do, then it’s probably a great match!

We suggest you also hashtag the name of your business! When people search your business, they can easily find everything you post under one hashtag. It is also important to note that your hashtags should always be relevant, as well as the right size.

You should not use hashtags that are too large or too small. Too large and your posts will get buried underneath everyone else’s posts. Too small and not many people are using/searching that hashtag. We suggest you use hashtags that have between 10k-100k posts. Another great tip is to use a mixture of different size hashtags. Use some that have 10k posts, some that have 25k posts, a few that have 50k posts, and maybe one or two that have between 75k-100k posts.

If you’ve been reading our content for awhile, then you have heard us talk about the Thumbprint Method. If you haven’t, read THIS BLOG POST first!

When you’re trying to discover hashtags that are relevant to your business, analyze your Thumbprints. Our suggestion is to create many different sets of hashtags that are relevant to each one of your Thumbprints. It is crucial to create multiple different sets of hashtags and not to use the same ones every single time!

Keep track of relevant hashtags in the notes section of your phone. Group them together based on Thumbprints, and continue growing them based on the results you see!

Interacting with Hashtags

Next, part of your hashtag strategy should be engaging and interacting with the people who use the same hashtags as you. The people using the same hashtags as you are automatically people who you have something in common with. Go to their account, leave genuine comments, and engage with their posts and stories.

A great strategy is to follow a few hashtags that align with your brand. When you follow those hashtags, you can easily engage with the posts that show up on your feed. This will help you build genuine connections with others with similar interests, and they will most likely engage back with you and your content!

It is important to note that you should continue going back and engaging with some of the same accounts every time. We suggest you save their post to a collection, so you can quickly refer back to their account to engage!

You can take this even a step further by engaging with the people who follow the business owner who uses the same hashtag as you. For example, if you follow #cleanbeautyblogger, we encourage you to interact with the creators who are using that hashtag AS WELL AS the people who are engaging and interacting with that creator. When you go to the creators posts, you can see who is commenting on their posts. Since those people are interested in something that you offer as well, you could go to their account and engage as well. If they like your content and how you serve your audience, there is a high chance that they follow you as well!

When you’re engaging with hashtags, it is important to interact with a strategy not randomness. Interacting with randomness doesn’t result in success. Strategy breeds success! So be sure to approach your hashtags with strategy!

Why Am I Not Seeing Results?

The biggest question everyone is asking about their Instagram hashtags strategy is-

“Why are my hashtags not reaching more people?”

It’s most likely not the algorithm! Therefore, there are a few different reasons why your hashtags may not be reaching many people.

1. Your hashtags could be too broad. The hashtags you are using could be too large for people to find you. When hashtags are too saturated, it can be too difficult for people to discover your posts before they get buried. If you aren’t seeing results, we would suggest to continue scaling down the size hashtags you are using. As your account grows, you can begin using larger hashtags.
2. Your hashtags may not be relevant to your business. Your content will not do well if you aren’t using relevant hashtags. Just because others see results with certain hashtags doesn’t mean that you will see success. Success comes from finding hashtags that work for YOUR business and brand!
3. Your content may not be quality content. This one is tough, but it is a question you should ask yourself. Are you producing content that is quality content? Are you serving your audience well and bringing value? You want to make sure your photos are not grainy, blurry, or dark. Post quality photos and valuable content.

Want to Learn More About Hashtag Strategies?

Check out this week’s episode of the Make Chic Happen Podcast, “The Truth About Reaching More People through Hashtags!”

You can also read one of our previous blog posts, “3 Ways to Boost Your Instagram Reach”.