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| The Ultimate Hashtag Strategy |
The Ultimate Instagram Hashtag Strategy
Boosting your following or sales on Instagram is not just the magic of content it also needs the ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy. A well-planned hashtag strategy will let you achieve your business or social goals in less time and effort. It not only gives a boost in audience reach but also helps in increasing the engagement from the right audience.
So the question arises What is a Hashtag strategy? Why is it important and how can you create a hashtag strategy for yourself.
In this article, " The Ultimate Instagram Hashtag Strategy", We will cover all these questions and give a step-by-step plan to create your own Instagram hashtag strategy for your business or community.
What is the Hashtag Strategy?
A Hashtag Strategy is a well-defined plan for using the right hashtag with the right content at the right time. It includes account research, content planning, copywriting, and management to create a successful Hashtag Strategy.
For example, if you have an Instagram page for dog food. To create a hashtag strategy you need to understand what kind of words people search for on Instagram, Who are your competitors and what hashtag strategy they are using.
Multiple factors like niche, time, content type, competitor analysis, keywords, etc. should be considered while creating an ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy.
Continue reading this article to get a better idea of how to create a hashtag strategy for yourself.
Why is Hashtag Strategy Important?
There are several reasons why is hashtag strategy important. We have listed some of them here.
- Increase reach: This is one of the major reasons why you should have a hashtag strategy for your content plan.
- A Clear Objective: Having a well-defined hashtag strategy clears your social objective like what you want to achieve with your content.
- Discoverability: This is important for a new Instagram account because the hashtag strategy makes them discoverable to the audience they are searching for.
- Long-Term Goals: Hashtag strategy helps in achieving your long-term goals like sales, conversion, profit growth, brand building, etc.
- Saves Money: Using hashtag strategy will save a lot of your marketing budget and the money you spend on boosting your content on social media.
As you can see, having an ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy will not only save you money but also help you make more through sales and revenues.
So, it is time to learn a step-by-step plan to create a hashtag strategy for your business
Steps to Plan Your Hashtag Strategy
A successful Instagram hashtag strategy involves research and analysis. We will try to cover all the steps that will ultimately create a hashtag strategy for your business or social media goals.
We divide the Ultimate Instagram Hashtag Strategy into 6 steps:
- Know your tribe
- Crafting Relevant Hashtags
- The Magic Number
- Hashtag Sets for Impact
- Analyzing Performance
- Community Building through Hashtags.
Know Your Tribe
Instagram is all about people. They have different likes and dislikes. They follow different accounts. They have different interests. That's why it is necessary to know your tribe on Instagram and where you fit in.
Knowing your tribe lets you choose the right audience who are most likely to search and engage with your content on Instagram. It also helps you to choose the right set of words for the hashtag strategy we are planning to make.
So, the first step is to find your domain or tribe on Instagram. Let's understand how to do it with an example:
Suppose you have an Instagram account for your bakery promotion.
Next, you need to think about what kind of people are more interested in having a cake. You can include audiences like Food Bloggers, Foodies, People who like parties, and celebrations, People from certain religions, say Christians who often have cakes, breads, etc.
In the same way, you will make a list of all types of people who are most probably interested in food or a bakery. You can also check other bakery's Instagram account to understand their tribe.
Mostly you can find the right audience by thinking about these 5 factors:
- Age
- Religion
- Demography or Place
- Income or Financial Status
- Interests and Hobbies
If you find these factors for your audience, you will know your tribe on Instagram. This factor will let you create a list of words list that will ultimately become your keywords for hashtag strategy.
Moving to the next we will create a list of hashtags that we will be using for our content.
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| Example : How to find hashtag for bakery |
Crafting Relevant Hashtags
The next step is to craft relevant hashtags for the audience that we just made. It will include all words in your list as these words blend with your audience's interests and search results.
Let's continue with the bakery example
We have a list of words that match the interest of the bakery. Now we need to add hashtags and make multiple sets of different hashtags like the following
Bakery Instagram Hashtag Set 01
Bakery Instagram Hashtag Set 02
Similarly, make as many sets as you can. Having at least 10 sets is a good start to try different kinds of content and check their performance with relevant Instagram hashtags.
Once you have sets ready, we need to understand how to use them, and when to use them. That is what we are going to learn in the next step.
The Magic Number
Instagram has a magic number of hashtags for successful growth. That number lies between 10-15 hashtags per post. This number is not a limit but it is a recommendation for Instagram accounts to have a higher engagement.
So the question arises, how will you utilize your hashtag set in this magic number of Instagram?
The best way is to go with the metrics, While creating a hashtag list in the previous step make sure you also type the numeric value of how many posts are created with each hashtag.
To find it out, go to Instagram, create a dummy post, and type any hashtag from your list in the description box. Instagram will show you the number of posts that have been created under a specific hashtag. Just add those numbers to your hashtag list, no need to be precise just go like 100K, 200K 10K, etc.
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| How to find post count for hashtags in Instagram |
Once you have edited your list, sort your hashtag from low to high by post count. It is a good idea to make a list in Excel or Google Sheets so that you can sort and filter in whichever way you want.
Now, to create a set of 15 hashtags include at least 9 hashtags with a higher post count and 6 with a lower post count. Try as many combinations as you like.
Once you are ready with multiple sets of the magic number of hashtags. We are ready to move to the next steps to try these hashtags and check their impact.
Hashtag Sets for Impact
We are now halfway to creating a perfect Instagram hashtag strategy. Now all you need to do is to plan your content and use hashtags sets we have created till now. Make sure you have your profile in Professional mode so you can check the impact of using hashtags.
Try different types of content like Posts, Carousels, Reels, Stories, etc. Make sure to include the hashtag we have created with it and stay within the recommended limit of 10-15 hashtags per post.
After every post on Instagram, you need to measure their insights. You can check this article from Instagram help docs on how to check insights.
Measuring the impact of your hashtag will let you filter out hashtags that aren't performing well. This way you can refine your list and stick to specific hashtags that drive your Instagram account growth.
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| Analyzing Performance of your hashtag strategy |
Analyzing Performance
We continue our performance analysis in this step. For every post that you publish on Instagram check for metrics like views, likes, saves, and impressions. These numbers are important for making the right decision through the process of creating your ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy.
Filter out posts that have higher engagement. These posts will have all the hashtags that will help you grow your reach.
All hashtags that show lower performance metrics on Instagram are still worth it because you can try them with different types of content. Sometimes, a particular set may work with posts but not reels, and vice versa.
In the next section, we will explore how to build your own community around these hashtags.
Community Building Through Hashtags
Most of the businesses on Instagram have long-term goals like sales, brand building, leads, etc. These goals can be achieved by community building through hashtags.
Building a community means you need to find a group of people on Instagram who admire your work, product, or service. They are your ultimate sponsors, advertisers, and influencers because they will promote your Instagram account happily for free.
To build a community through hashtags it is recommended that you have some unique hashtag for yourself. For example- If you have a bakery shop with the name TastyTreats then use this word as the first hashtag in your post description.
Instagram allows replying to certain hashtags. So once people start engaging with you they can use your unique hashtag whenever they post something related to your work.
It is also useful for brands that go for inorganic promotion since they can use their own unique hashtags in paid content.
So this is the end of 6 steps to create your own Ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy. If you follow the steps properly, you will definitely see a significant change in your Instagram metrics.
Conclusion:
For wrapping up this article, all that is left is your growth. Instagram is the best place to grow your business or fan following and having the ultimate Instagram hashtag strategy will make it faster and easier.
If you think we have missed something in this article or have any awesome strategy hacks that will be helpful for others, feel free to comment.
For your convienice, we have gathered some articles that will give you a well-defined list of all hashtags for your business or brand. Have a look!