If you’ve been on social media for a while, you’re probably already familiar with #️⃣hashtags. Hashtags are helpful labels that help your content be discovered by other people, especially your target market.
While we all know what hashtags are, most of us don’t really know what hashtags are perfect for them or how to use them right. Knowing how to use hashtags will definitely improve your brand’s reach and engagement on social media.
Here are the four ways to find the best hashtag for you.
1. Do research on other influencers and competitors
You can start off by taking a look at the hashtags being used by your competition and influencers with the same niche. Take note of what hashtags they use most often, how many hashtags they use in a post, and how much engagement they are getting on average. Having knowledge of what hashtags your competition uses will help you when formulating hashtags for your own brand so that you can reach your target audience more easily.
2. Keep track of which hashtags are trending
While Twitter has always shown trending hashtags, there are also free tools for Instagram which can help you stay on top of the game. Websites such as RiteTag and BrandMentions can help you choose hashtags that will get you on top of search results. Not all popular hashtags might relate to your business, but by constantly tracking the trending hashtags, you’ll surely think about related content that you can put out. It will also help you increase your relevance and discoverability.
3. Find related hashtags
When you go on Instagram and type a hashtag on the search bar, you’ll be able to see related hashtags and how many posts have used those hashtags. Make it a habit to list these hashtags down so that you can create a list of your own hashtags.
While it’s okay to use hashtags with millions of posts, it is also recommended to use more localized hashtags with posts around 10,000-200,000. Local or niched hashtags like this will have fewer searches, but that also means less competition and more targeted searches. Try to use a combination of global hashtags and niched ones for your posts, experiment and see which ones work for you, and tweak your hashtags from there.
4. Monitor hashtags that you use
Once you start using hashtags, try to experiment by using different sets of hashtags for different posts. This way, you can monitor which posts are getting better results. You might find a pattern on which hashtags work best for you. Keep using different combinations of hashtags until you find the ones that work best for your brand.