Wondering how to wade through the waters of Instagram and find the best hashtags for your content? Welcome to the article you’ve always wanted to read.
For every Instagrammer out there who knows everything there is to know about Instagram hashtags, there are seemingly countless others that haven’t got a clue where to begin when it comes to attaching hashtags to their Instagram posts. While you may just think that hashtags are there to make your content look spammy, they’re a lot more helpful than you’re giving them credit for.
When you know how to find the perfect trending hashtag on Instagram, you’re also going to unlock the secret on how to make your brand more palatable and shareable which is ultimately going to increase your chances of gaining new followers regularly.
Let’s take a look at the best ways to find trending hashtags on Instagram.
Article Contents
Why You Need Trending Hashtags
Before we dive into helping you find the best hashtags that Instagram has to offer, let’s consider why you need them in the first place. According to a number of studies out there, having hashtags on your Instagram content is going to significantly increase your chances of receiving engagement.
Mix a much happier community with the reality that the proper hashtags can increase your chances of turning up on the explore page or in the ‘top posts’ part of Instagram, and you’ve got a recipe for success when it comes to building a successful online presence.
The most important thing to consider here is that you can’t become Instagram famous by just using the first hashtags that you come across. You need to find the perfect balance between trending and relevant hashtags for your profile.
One of the most important things to consider is that you don’t necessarily need the most popular hashtags on Instagram to make you popular. In fact, you need to devise a strategy that’s going to involve the best phrases and words that are going to gain you traction, which is what we’re going to talk about today.
Top Tools for Instagram Growth & Engagement
| Rank | Tool | Type | More Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seek Socially | Growth Service | Visit |
| 2 | Nitreo | Growth Service | Visit |
1. Look for Hashtags in Your Community
One of the first things you need to do when you’re working out how to locate the best hashtags for your profile is to look at what your community is doing. Remember, one of the biggest reasons that you’re looking for the best tags is to help you connect on a deeper level with that community and create a target audience of like-minded people. With this in mind, it’s wise to use phrases and words that are going to be a hit among your customers. You need to consider a few things:
- Your Audience: why not check out some of the latest posts by your audience. There’s a good chance that they’ve put some hashtags on their content, and if you notice some that you think are trending, try adding them to your list to use on future content.
- Your Competitors: remember, any competition you’ve got on Instagram is going to be putting in just as much effort to find the best hashtags for their content. By using the tags that companies who are your competition are using, you can implement the strategy of working smarter, not harder.
- Influencers: of course, influencers know what it takes to produce the perfect list of hashtags that are relevant to their industry. Check out some of the popular influencers that fall into your niche and see which tags they’re using.
Remember, when you’ve found yourself a tag, don’t be afraid to mix things up a bit and vary it a little.
2. Find Top Performing Posts
Another strategy to implement when figuring out the best hashtags to use for your content is to look at hashtags being used on posts that are wildly popular. These posts are highly likely to end up on that Explore page, which means that you’re more likely to end up there as well if you use them on your own content. The fact that these posts are doing so well is a pretty good indication that their hashtags are working wonders for them.
Remember that when you’re collecting and finding your hashtags, you can’t just choose random phrases that you think will work. You need only to pick the tags that you think are going to be relevant to your niche and community. If you start using tags just because they’re popular and trending, you’re going to risk your content and account being flagged by Instagram itself.
3. Find Relevant Tags
This is one of the best recommendations for finding the right hashtags because most of the time, it delivers effective results.
Additionally, you don’t have to do too much work to see the results. Try typing a word or hashtag into the search bar that falls into your industry and see what comes up in the suggestion box. This is sure to help you when it comes to suggestions that may end up being even better than the one you initially searched.
To ensure that the new hashtags you find are popular or trending when you type your hashtag into the search bar take note of how many posts are attached to it. Not only will you be able to see where it ranks, but you’ll be able to see how many people are using it as well.
4. Use Tools to Find the Right Hashtags
One of the best recommendations we’ve got for people who ask us how to find the most relevant hashtags for their industry is to use any tools or applications that are out there that are designed to help you connect with the right tags. There are many companies out there who can help you find those trending hashtags and have the analytics and data to determine whether they’re trending or not.
All you need to do is sign up for a hashtag generator, and you can start searching your ultimate hashtags. If you want more information on the hashtag you’ve looked up, they can provide this also as a part of the subscription.
Most tools out there are incredibly easy to use and provide a wealth of information regarding the hashtags that you search. If the search bar on Instagram isn’t enough and you’re looking for all of the information in one place, we recommend finding a third party company that can help you find what you’re looking for.
Out of all of them, we found Task Ant to be the best. They find trending hashtags for you!
5. Cross-Platform Hashtags
Why not expand your horizons with your search for hashtags and look elsewhere for them, not just on Instagram. Because most social media platforms now use hashtags, it’s worth checking out what everyone is talking about out there and what are the most popular hashtags currently.
There are also third party companies that can help you find these types of hashtags, by search the internet far and wide for you so that you can spend that search time on other things. This is a great way to get a good idea of what’s trending – not just on Instagram, but elsewhere in the online world as well. This is going to help you keep your finger on the pulse of the latest, newest hashtags that you can rotate on your content to keep yourself at the top of those search lists.
6. Stay Ahead of Any Trends
Instead of putting lots of time into working out how you’re going to find the most relevant hashtags on Instagram, why not create your own hashtag and help it to gain traction? While this may be the most difficult strategy to implement on our list, it’s also something that can end up being incredibly helpful for your overall Instagram strategy if you are able to pull it off. All you need to do is make sure that the campaign for your hashtag is memorable, funny and of course, strategic.
Lots of big brands out there use branded hashtags to promote any upcoming events or new products that they have. There are many examples of brands creating a word or a phrase to associate with their brand – Red Bull created the hashtag #putacanonit to encourage people to take more pictures of themselves drinking the popular energy drink. If you pull this off and your branded hashtag becomes popular, then people will be talking about your brand for weeks and even years.
Make the Most of Hashtags
Figuring out the best hashtags to use for your content isn’t going to be the easiest thing in the world – but it’s also worth it if you want to do well on Instagram. While you do have to work harder, you also learn how to work smarter.
You can even create a list of hashtags to use for every day of the week, so you’re continually rotating them and staying relevant. Instagram is an incredibly competitive place, which is why you need to be continually doing your homework to make sure that your Instagram hashtags are up to date and trending. There’s no point using hashtags that aren’t going to get anyone’s attention, so do your research and make sure that your hashtags are working for you, not against you.
