How to Conduct Hashtag Research
If you find yourself reading this blog post, you’re probably proud of the content you’re producing, but are looking for the secret sauce to maximize your reach organically. While the secret sauce consists of many elements, one contributing ingredient is hashtags! Hashtags are a simple yet effective tool that allow you to build your brand, boost a marketing campaign, and keep in touch with your current audience. Forming a hashtag strategy can take some time, but once the hashtag research is done, it’s smooth sailing from there! Read on to learn more about some of our top tips for conducting hashtag research.
IDENTIFY HASHTAGS YOUR AUDIENCE IS ACTUALLY SEARCHING FOR
STALK YOUR COMPETITORS (WE ALL DO IT SOMETIMES LOL)
The first step in conducting hashtag research is determining which hashtags are going to help your biz. A great place to start with this is by taking note of what hashtags others in your industry are using. Have a notepad on hand as you browse through a few of your competitors’ feeds and compile a master list of all hashtags relevant to your business. What makes a hashtag relevant? Think in terms of your niche, location, and what your target audience is already searching for or following.
LOOK AT TOP POSTS IN YOUR NICHE
When you find a hashtag you really like, stop and look at the top posts for that hashtag to see what other hashtags those posts utilized. Are any of those relevant to your business? If so, add them to the master list!
UTILIZE LATER’S HASHTAG SUGGESTION FEATURE
If you don’t already know, we love using Later for all things Instagram scheduling. One feature we always take advantage of when developing a strategy for our new clients is their hashtag suggestion feature! This tool allows you to search a hashtag and it will provide you with a list of other related hashtags you could utilize. See below for an example!
BALANCE HASHTAG DENSITY
Once you’ve compiled a master list of hashtags, narrow down that list to the ones that work best for you, your audience, and business goals. An important thing to keep in mind when doing this is hashtag density. It’s a highly saturated market out there, but luckily hashtag density provides insight on the level of competition associated with any particular hashtag. You want your hashtags to be popular and what your target audience is searching for, but you also don’t want that hashtag to have SO many posts that yours will only get lost. We typically try to aim for hashtags between 10k and 50k posts, but it is important to incorporate a healthy mixture of small, medium, and large!
CREATE HASHTAG GROUPS
One of the biggest hashtag mistakes you could make? Using the same hashtags on all of your posts! This becomes spam-y and will ultimately limit your reach. Instead, create hashtag groups that correspond with your 9 pillars of content! For instance, if you’re a wedding planner, consider having separate hashtag groups for posts like venues, table setting, wedding dress, and more. Both Later and Planoly have an awesome feature where you can save these hashtag groups for future use!
How many hashtags should you include in each group? Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags so take advantage of it! We typically say between 8 and 15 is the sweet spot, but ultimately the more hashtags you use, the more likely your post is to be seen. However, don’t just use 30 hashtags for the sake of it! Ensure that each hashtag is relevant to your niche.
TRACK ANALYTICS AND ADJUST ACCORDINGLY
As with any social media strategy, continuously track analytics and make adjustments accordingly. You can do this right on the Instagram app under Insights or in Later’s analytics feature. This makes it easy to track which posts perform well, thus helping you understand which hashtags are working and which might need to be updated!
We hope this blog post was helpful for you in learning more about our hashtag research process. For more tips, you can download our free Ultimate Guide to Hashtags on Instagram download! We hope you try out a few of these tips and can’t wait to see you on the ‘Gram!
xx- The Homies
