Love it or hate it, you can never ignore it. That’s right, I am talking about Instagram. In the 21st century, being a millennial, I can tell you for a fact; Instagram for us is like, morning tea and newspaper for people of a prior generation. So, no matter how much hate and heat nowadays social media is getting, I personally feel it is more appealing than annoying.
But have you ever thought the most shared picture of a food on Instagram is of a pizza, which draws more likes and engagement than a picture or post of yours? This might be because everyone loves Pizza. Or this might be just the way how people use their Instagram Hashtags. Yes, the way you caption your posts with hashtags has a huge impact on engagement, likes, and followers.
So for the same purpose, we will help you with some Instagram hashtag hacks which you could use in your posts:
The more the merrier
You might have understood what this point brings to you before even further reading it. It means to add as many hashtags to your posts as you could. However, there are people recommending the use of only 5-10 hashtags per post, but we suggest you use the whole 30 – that is the limit set by Instagram. Also, you can increase the limit of 30 hashtags per post, by adding ‘-&’ after every hashtag crossing the limit. But make sure, all your hashtags are relevant to your target audience and industry – otherwise, it’s just another act of brain in the drain.
Always add line breaks before your hashtags
No matter how much hard work, patience, and love you add on to your captions before writing them, they will all be in vain if they are not aesthetically pleasing. This is a very easy hack, that people tend to ignore. You should always add line breaks before you head on to the hashtag section of your caption. So, for instance, if you are using, like around 30 hashtags, it wouldn’t even be clumsy.
Use hashtag suggesting apps
We have talked in brief about the importance of using relevant hashtags. But, here’s the thing – using many famous hashtags might get you a few likes. But they would not increase your engagement and followers. For increasing the same, you need your hashtags to be super relevant and attractive at the same time. But that too is no lay man’s job. For the sole purpose of that, you can opt for apps that help you with deciding those hashtags – there are a number of them available on Instagram.
I personally use Keyword Tool for Instagram Hashtags. The tool provides some amazing hashtags that can drive huge engagement. You can try the same too.
Add your own branded hashtag to your Instagram bio
This is something which most people do not know about. You can always add your own personalized hashtag to your bio, all you need to do is just add “#” to your bio and then it becomes a clickable link. There are so many great things about this feature. My personal favourite is that it makes your bio even more functional. Also, by doing this, your followers get into a habit of posting with the same and it fosters a long-term relationship with your existing followers. We can’t deny that this is a major objective if you want to be influential in the future.
Follow your favourite hashtags
This too is an underutilized trick of the trade. Most people do not know that you can follow hashtags also on Instagram. This is very helpful, and we will let you know how. You can ask your existing audience and followers to follow your own branded hashtags so that you can communicate with them more easily and more frequently. Once a hashtag is being followed, one can see top posts and stories of it.
While we come to the end of the article, here’s a final piece of advice – every hack would work only if your core content is engaging and attractive, so your first priority should be to create exclusive content for your followers and then on how to reach the wider audience. All the best!