The Importance of Hashtags
I hear so much talk around the subject of Hashtags. “Are hashtags important’, “Do I really need them”, “Do they make that big of a difference” . Some people think they are just for looks, others don’t want to take the time to use them and some people just think they clutter up your posts. The truth is they are a CRUCIAL part of your posts.
#can make the difference of only your followers seeing your post and an extra 50+ people. That number can also be higher depending on the number of #s used and of course the relativity of your #s. At Afton our main audience is musicians. Some of them being rap artists and others are more rock based. Because of this we use #s like #HipHopmusic #unsignedrap #unsignedrock #unsignedartists. That way other (potential followers) that use those #s or follow those #s will see our content even if they are not following us directly.
So even if you use a small amount of #s on your posts it will still help your account to grow. Instagram however, does have a maximum amount of #s per post which is 30. Some people find that they can get away with using 30 #s each post and others find that it can be too much clutter for their audience. Your goal is to find out a good amount of #s to use without going overboard.
How Do I Know Which Ones To Use?
The main issue that occurs is when people ‘bite off more than they can chew’. What I mean by that is they use #s with too big of an audience. So when they make a post and they use #hiphop there are about 75 millions posts about that already. Yes that has the potential for a lot of people to see it but in reality Instagram puts the most liked images at the very front and works their way down to the lowest liked (or engaged) posts. So unless you are getting 1,000+ likes on your posts then a lot of people won’t scroll down far enough to see your post.
When you are starting out you should find a hashtag that has enough posts where people are actually talking about the subject, but not too many that your post is flooded in the mix. For example one of our #s (#unsignedartists) has about 177K posts. That is a lot of posts already using that hashtag, but there is still a good chance that people will be able to find your post.
Below you will find an example of some of the #s that we use in our posts:
Where Do I Start?
I recommend researching 5 #s to start with. Three of them having under 1 million posts and 2 having closer to 100k. Once you find some that work you can slowly start adding more #s to your post.
And until you find those core hashtags you can just use ones that relate to the image that you are posting. So for our above example you could use #Jayz #rapper #musician…etc
Happy Hashtag hunting!
Other Resources
If you are not sure where to start we are here to help! We also, have a lot of promotion options to help grow your account over on our store including Social Media Blasts, Album Reviews, and Featured Blog Articles. You can check them out HERE
Be sure to also check out some of our other blogs!
How To Get More Instagram Followers
Don’t Wait Around For Your Big Break
