Instagram Business Hashtags

If you have spent any time hanging out on any Social Media platform then chances are you have noticed a hashtag or ten about the place.

Hashtags first arrived on the social media scene on twitter, back in 2007.  Since then they have spread across all popular social media platforms.  They are a useful means of indexing content and making it more searchable.

Hashtags have been part of Instagram since its inception. In this visually rich environment, they have created:

• A place where it is easy for individuals to connect with others who have similar interests and
• Businesses to showcase themselves to potential customers or clients.

Adding hashtags to your own photos and creating hashtags for your customers to use will ultimately extend the reach of your business within Instagram.

Download the Instagram Marketing Planner HERE

Before getting into the nuts and bolts about hashtags for business on Instagram I’ve got a little confession.  With the exception of things like event and location hashtags I’ve always felt a bit icky about using them.  However, I have come to realise the importance of them if I want to use Instagram to organically grow my businesses.  It is difficult for new people to find me if I don’t.  Sometimes we just need to get over ourselves 😉

 

Just to be clear on what these are I’ll give you a few examples.

Crowd sourced Instagram business hashtags:

Try searching a popular music festival like #coachella #stereosonic or #soundwave and they’ll return thousands of images.  Consider all the word of mouth marketing being done by every one of those images.

You’ll find hashtags on Instagram for just about every festival and event you can think of.  That’s a lot of free advertising. An event organiser who doesn’t create and communicate an event hashtag to attendees is missing out bit time.

Imagine yourself looking at pictures of your friend or friends having a great time somewhere. Chances are you’ll want a piece of that action next time.

Unique hashtags relating to your brand are another way to generate fan content.  Let your customers know what that hashtag is and encourage them to use it.  Ask them to tag your business when using or wearing one of your products.  A customer who loves your products or services is going to want to tell the world about it, giving them a hashtag to use makes it easy.

Stepping away from physical events and products photos shared through crowd sourced hashtags can be used to create community through a common interest.  Fat Mum Slim’s #fmsphotoaday is a perfect example of how a little idea grew into a very large community. A community who have shared millions of photos and inspired both digital physical products.  For Chantelle, it has created massive awareness of her personal brand and multiplied her online following.  Anything an online brand like this is doing can be translated to the bricks and mortar and service based businesses too.

Developing hashtags for your business and making them stick takes serious strategy and (sometimes) a bit of luck.

Download the Instagram Marketing Planner HERE

Expanding instagram business hashtags:

In the first instance, think of these hashtags as a way of cataloguing your images and making them searchable.  By doing this you are making it easier for people to fin d you.

On Instagram the combination of photos and hashtags make it easy for potential customers to find you because it is easy to find people with common interests and businesses with the stuff they want to buy.  It is also easy to find people and places within a geographic region.  It is powerful stuff.  I have actually met some great friends on Instagram because we connected through those common interests within a local geographic area, I’ve also found some great places to eat!

By comparison with crowdsourced hashtags using these hashtags to expand the reach of your business is straightforward.  There is nothing stopping you jumping right in and using them on the next image you post for your business.  They will bring new eyes to your account with only a little more effort on your behalf.

To my mind the key to not feeling icky about using hashtags for your business on Instagram is to use them in genuine, non-spammy way.  Consider your customer and what they want to see.

Having done your research ask yourself if your hashtags lead them to other images that are consistent with your own industry and brand.

I’d love to see any action you do take on Instagram as a result of this post.  Hashtag your photos with #hardwoodIG to make sure we see them.  You can find Tatum on Instagram here and Woody here.

Want to learn more?

Like any social media platform it’s important that if you’re using instagram for business then you’re using it effectively.

We’ve developed a complete Instagram Marketing Planner for you to download. Complete it (and implement) to get real results from your effort with measurable ROI.

Download the Instagram Marketing Planner HERE