6 Smart Tips to Build Your Hashtag Marketing Strategy

Hashtags came into limelight with Twitter and took center-stage with Instagram. Today, Instagram is synonymous with hashtags and vice-versa. But how do you know what works? How do you know what hashtags to use and how do you even identify the right ones? However with hashtags being so popular the real question that you should be asking is how to be in the top posts when hashtags for popular tags like #food and #fashion have posted in crores! Let’s
check out a few hacks that will help you demystify hashtag popularity.

1.  Find Good Hashtags
The first step to do when it comes to hashtags is identifying good and workable hashtags from your niche. There are a lot of tools available to help you identify hashtags in your segment. Use tools like Hashtagify, Websta, Hashtag.org, and RiteTag that help you identify popular tags. Make an excel of words and divide it into three segments – popular hashtags, secondary hashtags, and local hashtags.
Use around 4-5 popular hashtags with every image. The secondary hashtags are the ones that are not so popular but are relevant to your niche and you have a higher probability of being found with this hashtag. The third segment is local hashtags that are location specific tags. Use hashtags from each segment with every image.

2. Use different hashtags every time
This is an extension to the first point. The whole reason to create such a big repository of hashtags is that Instagram is very strict when it comes to what goes in. If a brand uses the same hashtags regularly or uses hashtags that aren’t relevant to their sector or image then Instagram can shadowban the user. To avoid this, it is better to have an arsenal full of hashtags so that you can use different hashtags with different images. Use tailwind to match the popular hashtags with your list and keep updating the same. Periodically check the relevancy of hashtags and remove those that are now not popular and add the ones that are currently trending.

3.  Branded Hashtags
Identifying and popularizing branded keywords should be the ultimate aim of the brand. Create unique hashtags around your service, tagline, brand-name, event or contest. Create a buzz around your events and contest with these hashtags. Use influencer marketing to populate the hashtag with relevant content. Have Twitter chats with brand hashtags. Make this a weekly thing to get maximum exposure and more audience. Market your brand hashtag during your events. Connect with attendees who are active on social media to tweet or insta-post with your brand hashtag. Have a live Q&A session via hashtags.

4.  Use Hashtags that Bloggers aren’t Using
The best way to get more followers is to avoid tags that bloggers are using. If you are a business, focus on hashtags in your niche that aren’t popular with bloggers, as that will give you more visibility with your relevant audience. If there is a #fashionblogger hashtag then it will be used and viewed mostly by fashion bloggers but if you use #fashiontrends then you will have better visibility. This will give you more followers. Also popular hashtags like #MondayMotivation, #ThrowbackThursday are popular with bloggers, use these sparingly or tie-up the image/content with your brand.

5.  Use Hashtags in your Insta-Stories
Using hashtags in your insta-stories will help show your stories to a more relevant audience and it will also feature in search listings. Make the most of it. However, if you add hashtags in the story, it does not look good. Here’s a hack to get around that.
Create an insta-story and then click on the AA button. Add hashtags that you wish to use. Then once you are done, again click on AA and click on the A in the middle. This will help add a colored background. Type an interesting call to action or creative title for the story and place it over the hashtags. This will hide the hashtags from public view but your story will list for the hashtags mentioned. You can even add the location to your stories. Go to stickers and select location. Now your insta-story is searchable for both location and hashtags.
Once the story is posted, you can swipe up to see the stats. Instagram shows stats like people who visited, from where they came like a hashtag, location, etc. This will let you know which hashtags work for you.

6. Split Tagging
While you know that you can add hashtags in the description and it gets the post listed. You can add more hashtags by using split tagging. Use a few mixes of tags in your description. Then once the post is published, go to comments and add more tags there. Your post will also show up for these tags while keeping the description clean. This will help you list for more hashtags while keeping the post description clean and easy to read for the viewer. This is highly useful while running contests and events.