Instagram can be very effective, but you have to be smart about how you use it. That’s where Instagram hashtags work so well.

Hashtags help you manage and find appropriate content on Instagram. They make it easy for your target audience to find you and add interest to your actions. An Instagram study showed that adding at least one hashtag to all of your Instagram posts will drive, on average, more than 12% more engagement.

Extend your reach

The best thing about hashtags is their ability to reach a wide range of people who may have absolutely nothing to do with your account and may not specifically follow you on Instagram.

How do Instagram hashtags work?

Let’s say a user searches for the term ‘gardening’. Instagram will show all the most recent posts that contain the keyword “gardening”. By using #gardening as a hashtag in your posts, you’re telling Instagram to feature your post whenever someone searches for that term.

Hashtag all your posts with related keywords. Use words and terms that you think Instagram users will search for. Always use the # symbol before the word, don’t use punctuation, keep it as short as possible, and use letters and numbers.

The best hashtags for Instagram

Throwing random hashtags all over Instagram won’t work for you. You will need to carefully choose the best and most popular hashtags to reach the right audience for your business. They should be appropriate for the keywords being searched by your target market, and you’ll need to keep an eye on which ones work best for you.

It will take time to find the best hashtags to use. Some strategies include:

• Take a look at the hashtags that your competitors regularly use to market their business.
• Try various hashtags and evaluate your results.
• Use a hashtag ideas app (like TagOMatic).

Making the most of trending hashtags

When an event occurs, a hashtag is often created. If you can associate your post to the hashtag, it’s more likely to be seen by those who follow that specific story.

The key is to keep an eye out for when a certain hashtag seems to be popular and post content using that hashtag to take advantage of the large number of viewers the hashtag receives.

In the Instagram search engine, search for other hashtags that are comparable to your page. Use these hashtags when posting new content. This is another way to reach Instagram users who are still on the site, but aren’t following you, otherwise they wouldn’t have seen your posts.