It’s high time we discussed hashtags. There’s so much confusion out there, I thought I’d break it down, so you know when you should be hashtagging, when you shouldn’t be, and how hashtags work.
- Facebook & hashtags. I’m starting off easy here. Best practice is, don’t use hashtags on Facebook. If you’re a clever little peanut that pushes their Insta posts through to Facebook, then just make sure you jump onto Facebook and remove the hashtags after you’ve posted.
- Instagram & hashtags. You must hashtag on Instagram. Okay, it’s not enforced but, it’s how you get reach. And with reach comes followers. The more people you reach, the more people have the chance to view your profile and hit that ‘Follow’ button. If you don’t hashtag, you’re not going to get anywhere fast.
- Hashtag selection. This is important! You need to be strategic with your hashtags. If you jump into Instagram and type in a hashtag, you can see how many people have posted with that hashtag. You want to get a selection of hashtags that include hashtags that have large number of posts and those that have a smaller number of posts. And they need to be specific to your industry/what you do.
- Specific hashtags to the post. When posting, make sure you use a set of ‘core’ hashtags that are relevant to your business – maybe say 10 or so. Then, ensure you post another 3 – 5 that are SPECIFIC to that post. For example, if I posted a picture of a dog, we’d post the following hashtags along with our core hashtags: #dog #italiangreyhound #dogsofinstagram #doggoneday.
