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Instagram Growth Strategies
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Making it on Instagram isn’t easy. We would know it: one of our staff bloggers’ art and writing Instagram channel struggled to get much traction.
Part of it was her fault: she updated rarely and when she did, she didn’t engage enough with followers and likers.
Part of it is Instagram’s new algorithm that no longer makes it easy to use tricks (read: scheduled publishing, links in bio and hashtag floods) to increase visibility.
So, what else is a poor Instagram user to do to push organic growth?
Well, Instagram Hashtags Are Going Nowhere
In the quest for growing her own Instagram channel (yes, that includes stop being lazy and get those photos posted and comments returned!)
our blogger has been looking for ways to push organic Instagram followers and likes that wouldn’t take too much of her already limited time budget.
Guess what? It’s hashtags. It’s funny, in a way, because hashtags are a big part of a social account owner’s life, yet they became so normal that she didn’t even think of them at first. Think about this:
Brian Robben from Robben Media grew his account @realbrianrobben to 54,000 Instagram followers mostly on the back of hashtags.
That’s plain amazing. Hashtags are going nowhere, that’s guaranteed. All it takes is using them in a smart way so that they can attract the audience you want to reach.
How to Use Instagram Hashtags to Get Noticed (5 Ways)
Hashtags are seriously the best way to get found on Instagram and there are five ways you can speed up the process and get noticed even when your account is merely weeks old.
1. Follow and Study Hashtags In Your Niche
Follow hashtags in your niche to get content inspiration and analyze trends:
- How many posts have been tagged with that hashtag? (Hint: more means popular; less means niche)
- What kind of content gets posted more often?
- What kind of engagement does that content receive?
You can also group hashtags per post type (e.g. books read this month, to-be-read lists, etc.) and start associating specific groups of hashtags to the same type of posts (plus a few more in the mix) to get as much visibility for your content as possible.
To help with studying niche hashtags, you can use tools like SkedSocial and Hashtagify, as recommended by Fatima Mahommed, Social Media Consultant at Digital Ethos: “You must get to know your audience and find out what they are looking for. Utilizing tools that help you identify hashtags and topics that your target demographic are searching for would be a good place to start.”
2. Comment on the Newest Posts in Your Niche Hashtags
Get noticed! Make your voice matter! Open the newest posts in your niche hashtags and start liking and commenting on the newest posts (that you genuinely like and want to comment on). Engaging with your Instagram audience is essential to grow your brand. Buying automatic Instagram likes can boost your engagement and increase your visibility on the platform. With more likes, your posts will rank higher, and your brand can reach a larger audience. Don’t miss the opportunity to enhance your brand’s online presence!
Some Instagram users are likely to comment back and follow you.
3. Add niche, popular and less popular hashtags in your post description
The post description is your golden room for your hashtags experiments! Played well, it can boost your account visibility and get you new followers.
So use niche hashtags, popular and less popular (a good mix), and remember that less popular may mean that you’ve just found your low hanging fruit.
Dylan Gordon, content marketer and founder of FunnelWays, shares his story: “The secret of leveraging hashtags to grow your page is using highly targeted hashtags.
Instead of going after more general and higher competition ones, going after the low hanging fruit, in the beginning, will help you build a strong base! The limit is 30 but I only use around 20-25 per post to make everything less spammy to avoid potential shadowbans. Those are two practices that have helped me exponentially in the past.”
Liz Jeneault of Faveable.com also doubled her Instagram following in less than a year using hashtags (now at 12.6K followers): 
In addition to recommending the use of niche hashtags that are directly related to the content along with more generic and wide-reaching ones, Liz shares a success story:
“One particular example of success I’ve had with using hashtags is with a recent post where I was promoting some fitness products by a company I’m a brand ambassador for. I used a mix of hashtags related to the products and also to the fitness industry overall like #fitspo, #fitmomsclub, #phillyfit and others. I had over 15,000 impressions from the hashtags I used and got over 80 new followers out of using the right hashtags with that post!”
And that, gentlepeople, is the power of hashtags.
4. Add those hashtags in the first comment under your post, too
Instagram hashtags in the comments can help boost your post visibility.
But not just in any comment.
Make it the first comment under your post, shortly after you posted.
And we mean shortly!
Seconds or up to a minute after you posted, or they won’t help your post in the hashtag feed.
Also, adding hashtags in the first comment allows to use fewer hashtags in the caption of the picture, giving it a cleaner look.
But we would advise against leaving the post hashtag free, because according to an Agora Pulse experiment, hashtags in posts outperform hashtags in comments.
So our suggestion is to put your most important hashtags in your post caption, and any other hashtags you want to add in the first comment seconds after you post.
5. Use niche and branded hashtags in your bio and posts
Niche hashtags can be your piggyback ride when you’re trying to create visibility for your branded hashtags, so be sure to use both in your bio and posts.
Moreover, you can use Instagram influencers to give visibility.
Jake Hay, Partner and Head of Development at PopShorts, tells a story of how branded hashtags worked with influencers:
“Our campaign with Home Centric asked us to create brand awareness, as well as drive customers to the grand opening of their first stand-alone store.
By partnering with a popular interior design influencer, she became an ambassador for Home Centric to create engagement for their grand opening.
With the use of #HomeCentric and #CaryGrandOpening, it allowed followers of the campaign to have access to all the content being shared by both our ambassador and brand themselves.
We utilized #BringItHomeCentric to host a contest where those who posted their own home decor, followed Home Centric and used the hashtag could possibly win a shopping spree.
This boosted following for the brand and rose awareness for the opening all in one hashtag.”
You can read the full case study for this campaign here: https://popshorts.com/work/homecentric/
How Many Instagram Hashtags Can You Have?
Legit no more than 30 in the post description.
But you can have more in that first comment under your post, plus a couple of good hashtags in the bio.
Let’s call that a total of 60 + 2 (or 4) bio hashtags.
We separated the count because bio hashtags won’t make you appear in a search, but here you can have branded hashtags so people can use your profile to find your branded content.
Anyway, that’s plenty of hashtags to work with! You don’t even need to use up your hashtag count to get discovered and earn followers. The right tags will do. And feel free to experiment!
That’s how Plume‘s Digital Marketing Specialist Kelly Newcomb found success for a new Instagram account:
“Having found a niche I decided to create a profile, approaching it as I would a client. Doing the hashtag research and coming up with content ideas. For the first month, I focused on very specific hashtags from that niche (less than 10k posts) and found a bit of growth (about 100 followers), but then I started to mix it up, I started to add in different hashtags including ones relating to fashion, other hobbies and hair dye (100k+). I hit the hashtag limit on every post and found that in month 2 I had doubled my following. In the coming months, I tested different combinations before I found the sweet spot. Now I always use the same 15 or so niche hashtags, followed by very specific hashtags ranging from 5k – 100k. I’ve noticed a huge boost in engagement and follows from profiles in my niche and beyond. An increase in following has been great, but for me, it’s all about the engagement, especially comments as a measurement of ‘success’.”
Mistakes to Avoid
A couple of things to keep in mind. Starting with hashtag overuse.
Brian Robben says: “A big mistake is to post the same hashtags over and over again because you’re not getting your content in front of new users. Spread out your posts to different audiences and you’ll get more views and followers. The Instagram algorithm appreciates variety in hashtags.”
Liz Jeneault warns against banned hashtags that may damage your account: “Before using any hashtags, though, it’s critical to quickly look them up to see if they’re banned. Hashtags can be banned for a number of reasons and many words you would not expect to be banned, do end up being temporarily off-limits.
Using banned hashtags can result in your account being shadowbanned, so it’s important to check to see if the hashtag has a number next to it. If it does, that means it’s probably OK to use.”
To Sum It Up: Using Instagram Hashtags to Get Noticed Is Not Hard
You can build an Instagram following effectively and easily with the only use of hashtags, without paying for advertising or buying followers.
But you should strongly consider the opportunity of collaborating with an influencer in your niche to boost your visibility and create effective branded hashtags. Start small, grow big.
To your success!
