Social media is conceivably one of the most important strategies you can use to build your brand and grow your marketing funnel. Of course, it isn’t enough to just post, you need to know how to post effectively, and one of the simplest ways to do that is to take advantage of trending hashtags.
Hashtags are used to a greater or lesser degree across various social media platforms, but there is one platform that has made the hashtag it’s own - Instagram. Nowhere are hashtags used to greater effect than on this photo-sharing platform, and for the savvy marketer, trending hashtags on instagram are a gift from the marketing gods. Here’s how to find out what hashtags are trending on Instagram, so that you can make the most of your campaigns.
The search
Unlike Twitter, which gives you a handy list of trending topics, Instagram doesn’t. With IG, you need to put in a little more effort to get to your trending tags. Fortunately, people are, for the most part, fairly simple with their tagging, especially if they have followed a few guidelines for effective hashtagging.
Your first port of call is going to be the search bar, where you will start entering a fairly broad search term. If you’re looking specifically for trending tags, you’ll need to remember to start the search with a hashmark. For example, if you want to see what dog-related hashtags are trending on Instagram, type #dog. Easy, right? Now you will see a drop-down list of all the tags that include the word “dog” and a handy counter below each one telling you how many posts use that tag.
Now it’s a matter of finding a tag that will work for your campaign and that’s getting the best possible numbers. But don’t just stop there, because there’s more info to be had.
Multi-tagging
Everyone knows that Instagram is where the hashtag blizzard was born. Some photographs have log lists of hashtags below them that cover every conceivable aspect of that pic. So someone’s dog pic will have #dogsofinstagram, #pug, #pugsofinstagram, #puglife and a host of other tags below it. Fortunately, again, much of the time it’s going to be related to the original tag in some way, which means you can draw inspiration from them. By clicking on any given one of those tags, you will see which posts are doing well under that tag, as well as how many posts use that same tag. You can then go back to the search function, to find out which related tags are doing the nest.
When it comes to Instagram, you just need to put in a little know-how and time to find the ultimate tags for your campaign. If you need help turning your Instagram strategy into a winning one, get in touch.