Social media is an exciting part of digital marketing. It’s fun, interactive and a little more causal than the likes of SEO strategy. But it can be a little complex. Social media marketing isn’t just about posting cute memes and quirky replies in the comments section. It’s about getting the word out about your brand and making meaningful connections with your audience.
Even once you have an awesome social media strategy in place, finding and engaging with your target audience can be tricky. With so many people registered on social media sites like Instagram, you need a way to filter out some of the noise. Fortunately, we hashtags to help us!
It is recommended that you complete a social media marketing course to keep your finger on the pulse with social media trends.
What’s A Hashtag and Why Do They Matter?
Hashtags are at the heart of social networking sites. They’re used to draw attention, to organize, and to promote. Hashtags make it easier for people on social sites to find, follow, and converse about popular topics, like movies, music, politics and more.
On the surface hashtags might not seem like much of a priority, but they are one of the most essential aspects of promoting your brand on Instagram.
Using the right hashtags in your posts can help your social media presence in the following ways:
- Hashtags make it easier to find your content.
- Hashtags can encourage audience interaction.
- Hashtags create brand awareness and expand your audience reach.
- Hashtags are a great way to keep an eye on the latest trends in your industry.
How To Use Hashtags On Instagram
Hashtags connect us by bringing together like-minded people. Using hashtags the right way can help to grow your social presence by finding people who are interested in your niche. If you want to harness the power of hashtags on Instagram, we have a few tips that will help you use them to your advantage.
- Use Hashtags That Are Relevant
Always use hashtags that are relevant to your brand and digital audience. By using hashtags that are specific to your brand you will attract a more specific audience. Including hashtags that aren’t relevant to your content also increases the risk of your post being flagged as spam. So adding a random trending hashtag to every post won’t work. The right hashtags will allow real users to find your brand, which will increase your audience organically because they are interested in your content.
- Branded Hashtags
Creating hashtags that are specific to your brand is a great way to generate a buzz online. Social media is vast and you’re sure to have a few competitors out there. Branded hashtags are a great way to stand out from the crowd and establish brand recognition. Always try to include at least one branded hashtag in your posts.
- Do Your Research
Hashtags are a little more complicated than just stringing a few words together. For hashtags to be effective you need to do your research. Check out the hashtags your competition is using and see if there’s a trend you might be missing out on. You can learn a lot from the hashtags that other brands are using. By comparing notes you can tweak your hashtag strategy to be more effective going forward.
- Use A Combination Of Hashtags
Once you find a hashtag that works for a specific post, do a quick search for “related hashtags”. This search will give you a list of popular hashtags that are related to your post. Adding a few related hashtags will increase your post visibility while still remaining relevant. When combining hashtags it’s important to remember to include a few brand specific tags too. If you don’t, your post will probably get lost in the shuffle as popular hashtags tend to generate a lot of traffic.
- Save Your Best Hashtags
Running an Instagram account is a full time job and remembering what you added to every post is pretty impossible. So once you find a combination of hashtags that work, save them. Doing so allows you to save loads of valuable time for future posts because you’ll already have them on hand.
- Comment With Hashtags
Hashtags aren’t just for captions. You can also use them when replying to comments. It’s a great way to get more traction for a specific hashtag and your brand as a whole. But try to avoid using too many. Adding three hashtags to a comment is more than enough. Anything else boarders on being flagged as spam.