Learn to Love Hashtags with These Tips!

We all have a love-hate relationship with hashtags. If you're a business or aspiring blogger/influencer, you need to step up your hashtag game to reach new people, be found, gain more followers and increase your engagement.

Enough talk... let's get started!

TIP #1: USE THEM

This seems like a "duh" tip, but you'd be surprised how many people don't use hashtags. Did you know that using just ONE hashtag on your post could increase engagement by 12.6%?!

Imagine what you can do with (5) or the maximum (30) hashtags per post!

Some people use hacks to include more than (30) hashtags. Everyone has their own opinion on the matter, but I recommend not going over the limit as it can look a bit odd to have a novel's worth of hashtags and then a few sentences as your caption. It looks a bit like spam as well.

If you have a hashtag strategy, you don't need to include 30+ hashtags for your posts. A friendly reminder that it can take a while of experimenting to find out which hashtag formula will work best for you.

TIP #2: USE A MIX OF HYPER-RELEVANT HASHTAGS AND BROAD HASHTAGS

You might think your goal with hashtags is simply to get more eyes on your content. We urge you to take it a step further.

Your goal should be to get the RIGHT eyes on your content - potential customers and followers that will engage and potentially share your posts.

It's crucial to define your target audience and customer before you create your hashtag strategy. I recommend using relevant hashtags that will reach your niche market and location. Also, feel free to include branded hashtags to your list as well. Follower count for these niche hashtags might not be as large, but you know that your content is reaching a community of people genuinely interested in this content bucket.

Some people are against using broad and popular hashtags in posts, but I believe there is no harm in including very popular hashtags into the mix and reaching a broader audience. Who knows! Maybe some of your new "likers" become engaged followers...

For example, if I own a dog walking service, I wouldn't only use popular hashtags like #dog #puppy. I would also include hashtags that describe my brand, business and ideal customer like #stldogmoms #stlsmallbusiness #stldoglovers.

TIP #3: KEEP YOUR CAPTIONS LOOKING PRETTY EVEN WITH HASHTAGS

Have you ever seen a post and it's one long caption followed by a long paragraph of hashtags that have nothing to do with the post or the company. Did this kind of caption give you an impression of the brand and the people behind the account?

Remember, perception is everything and it's important to make a great impression and look professional even on social media. One great way to do this is by cleaning up your captions with line breaks, especially between text and hashtags. I even recommend putting the hashtags in comments.

Your captions are going to look cleaner and more professional, which in turn makes your business look the same way. Instagram prevents you from adding line breaks directly on the app, so I recommend going to websites that help you format your captions. Scheduling apps like Planoly and Later also help with caption formatting.

There are more tips where this came from! Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, or contact us to discuss how our marketing services can help your business! Now, go get yourself some Hashtag Chocolate Ice Cream and get hashtagging!

-- Nicole Powell