The 2020 Instagram Hashtag Guide to Increase Your Reach

Repeat after me: hashtags are our friends!⁣⁣

If you want to create less content while still increasing your reach, this is the trick for you.
Hashtags are not just a trend, if used properly, they can help you reach your target markets!
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Yes, hashtags can and should be included in all of your posts!
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Here are my top 6 tips for using hashtags on Instagram:⁣
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DO YOUR RESEARCH: Only choose hashtags that have between 1k-500k posts. This way, it's more likely that your post will be seen by your target market. There is no point in using generic hashtags that have over 1M posts. Your post will only show up at the top of the explore pages that have the least uses. Don’t let your content get lost in the mix!

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USE ALL THE HASHTAGS: Use as many hashtags as you can, I typically aim for 20-30. The more hashtags you use, the more searches your post will appear in.⁣
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MAKE IT RELEVANT: Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your brand and that you don't use the EXACT same ones over and over again.⁣

CREATE A HASHTAG BANK: Do all of your hashtag research ahead of time. Research 50-70 tags you think are relevant and align with the criteria above, put them in a Google Sheet. Copy/paste when posting et voilà, you can thank me later. ⁣

DON’T GET SHADOW-BANNED!: Instagram can actually ban your posts from being seen on the explore page without you even knowing. I’ve only heard rumours of this and have never actually seen it happen, but, be careful. Do not copy/paste the same exact paragraph of hashtags into every one of your posts or risk the dreaded shadow-ban. Make sure you switch it up, change the order, and alternate hashtag groupings.

CHECK IN WITH YOUR POSTS: Social media and hashtag strategies are trial and error. You’re going to find that some groups of hashtags work and some don’t. To check in, head to your post on Instagram, and click “view insights”. A menu will pop up. Swipe it up and head to “impressions”. You’ll be able to see how many of your impressions were generated from hashtags.

I guarantee, they will make up at LEAST 50% of your impressions. So you can see why taking time to build a hashtag strategy is important!
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Remember, each platforms requires a different hashtag strategy. If you use this strategy on Facebook, it simply won’t work.

Now go get hashtagging!