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Hashtags can feel a bit confusing the first time you try and use them. What hashtags will give you the best growth? Should you use small hashtags? How do you begin to find the best hashtags for your business?
Luckily, hashtags aren’t hard to understand and in this post, you’re going to learn how to use hashtags for your business so that you can:
- reach new customers
- get more sales
- grow your audience
and more!
But first, what are hashtags?
Adding hashtags to your photos, videos and stories will group it together with other pieces of content that have been atrssigned that particular hashtag.
Hashtags are like keywords that can organize your content and help you find prospective customers.
When you use hashtags properly, you increase the chance of a future customer or client finding your products.
Using hashtags for business on Instagram differs from how someone might use hashtags for their personal account, so let’s take a closer look at how you can effectively use hashtags for business.
How Many Hashtags Should You Use?
Instagram currently allows 30 hashtags per post. You will not be penalized for using all 30, so I recommend to go ahead and use them all.
Target an Interest
To understand which hashtags you should be using on your posts, first, try and imagine what your ideal customer would be looking under on Instagram.
Let’s take a really specific niche, for example.
Say you are selling bone broth. You might think that your hashtags should be things like #simmer #soup #drink #chicken #beef #stock
While the above hashtags are related to your product, they aren’t likely to drive customers to your page. They are much too general and don’t target a specific interest for your customer.
So try to dive deeper and ask yourself what types of hashtags your current customer might be using.
Bone broth has been known to help aid stomach issues, so we could assume that our potential customer is interested in content towards gut health.
Now, instead of using generic hashtags like #chicken and #beef, we could try something like #healthygut and #guthealthmatters and improve our chances of targeting our ideal audience.
Finding Hashtags on Instagram
The right hashtags can help you target your ideal follower. Whether you are trying to get local followers to Instagram or target a specific demographic, the right hashtags will help you do just that.
Finding hashtags can be done through a couple of different methods:
- Manually
- With a hashtag generator/finder
- Premade hashtag lists
Pro Tip: Make sure you are mixing up the level of competitiveness with your hashtags. Don’t use 30 hashtags that all have over 1 million posts with them. Popular hashtags like these are used a lot and your content will get buried very quickly!
When you are able to find the right blend of hashtags, the results can be incredible. Just take a look at my reach below from a post where the hashtags brought in nearly 18,000 impressions!
Manually
To start looking for your hashtags, head into the search page on Instagram and start typing in your root word/phrase.
In the below example, our root word is “chicago”. In the example with our bone broth, we could have typed in “gut health”.
Then click on “Tags”.
This will bring up several hashtags related to your initial query. It’s a great place to start!
Next, click on one of the hashtags. In the below example, the hashtag we clicked on is “#chicagofood”.
Right underneath the hashtags is a goldmine of related hashtags that you can jot down and possibly use for your own posts.
You should do this for various root words/phrases in order to get a good list of hashtags to pick from.
Use a Hashtag Generator
Since there’s no easy way to copy and paste hashtags from the manual method, it can take some time to write down all the hashtags you find and review them periodically.
If you’d like to save time, you can use a hashtag finder.
Tailwind has one of the best hashtag finders because it’s not only easy to use, it takes only minutes to find related hashtags and sorts them into their competitiveness, as shown in the screenshot below!
You can also hover over each hashtag to see exactly how many posts are with it.
Sign up here to try Tailwind’s hashtag finder for free and see just how easy it is!
Premade Hashtag Lists
I’ve put together hashtag lists for different niches on Instagram for you to easily copy and paste to your photos!
The hashtags are in groups of 30, so you can use them knowing that you’ve got the best 30 hashtags ready to go.
I’m always adding to this list, so feel free to bookmark this article and check back if your niche isn’t listed yet.
- Hashtags for Dogs
- Hashtags for Puppies
- Hashtags for Fashion
- Hashtags for Travel
- Hashtags for Fitness
- Hashtags for Art
- Hashtags for Cats
- Hashtags for Bloggers
- Hashtags for Days of the Week
- Hashtags for Nature
Use a Branded Hashtag
Using a branded hashtag on Instagram can help build your community, grow your account with user-generated content and build your brand.
The above branded hashtag is simple to understand: photos that include your dog on your travels.
In Conclusion: Business Hashtags on Instagram
Using hashtags for business on Instagram is very straightforward and will help your business reach new potential customers.
You can find hashtags in a variety of different ways, the easiest being with a hashtag finder, but you can also find hashtags manually or use my hashtag lists!
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This article may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Dana Nicole is an award-winning freelance writer for MarTech/SaaS who was rated one of the best SaaS writers by Software World. She specializes in writing engaging content that ranks high in search engines and has been featured in publications like Semrush, ConvertKit, and Hotjar.
Dana holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and has over 15 years of experience working alongside national brands in their marketing departments.
When Dana’s not working, you can find her dancing en pointe, cooking up new recipes, and exploring the great outdoors with her two big dogs.