Are hashtags dead in 2022? Hashtags on Instagram has changed and evolved so much in the past few years which means that the hashtag strategy you’re currently using is outdated. In this article, we will be answering often-asked questions and help you get a new hashtag strategy for 2022.
What are hashtags and why do we use them?
For you to understand how outdated your hashtag strategy might be, we need to go back in time a little bit. We did a little bit of digging on google to find out the most popular hashtags used in 2016 to see what was being taught back in the day.
According to some of the article’s, written hashtags are a way to tag your photo and throw it into a chronological pool of other photos and videos. This allows users to find photos of similar interests or in the same niche.
Hashtags were created for photographers to find other content photographers, get inspiration, and make connections. But then cue the influencers, businesses, and entrepreneurs into that chat, that strategy slowly but surely stopped working leading us to today or more recently April of 2022. Head of Instagram Adam when to his stories to answer the question do hashtags hep views?
Do hashtags help with views?
The answer is that not really. They help us to understand what a post is about which means it might be more likely to show up on a hashtag page but in general hashtags cannot be considered as a way to get more distribution.
We were taught through the telephone that the right hashtag or a combination of hashtags will expose your brand to large and targeted audiences which is just not how it works anymore.
Are hashtags relevant?
Now maybe you’re wondering, if hashtags don’t help get more views, then why do we use hashtags at all? If you’re not aware, Instagram has started to expand into more SEO practices.
This means they are making their platform more search friendly, similar to YouTube and TikTok where you can look up a key phrase on their search and explore pages, and any post using those keywords or key phrases will appear in the results.
3 types of hashtags to use for your content.
Hashtags are a tool that supplies context about your post and supports delivery to the right audience. So, what should your hashtag strategy be?
Step 1 is to think less about hashtags. Spend less time on hashtag research and more time on creating the best possible content for your followers. When you feel like your content is at par with the best players in the game then you can start implementing the next steps.
Step 2 is to find and use relevant hashtags. We’ve heard a few times already that your hashtags should be relevant, and they should describe the content that you’re posting. When deciding to choose what a perfect hashtag is, try to look at three things in the photo.
The hashtags can describe the photo itself or the video itself. It could describe the content that you’re sharing in that post, or it could describe your page or your niche. So, your strategy with your hashtags is to be as descriptive as possible. For the photo or video, the content you’re talking about and the industry that you’re in.
How many hashtags should you use in your post?
Instagram said to use 3-5 hashtags in a post. Everyone’s Instagram strategy is going to look different. So, it’s important to test and see what works best for you. Maybe three to five hashtags work for someone else, but your sweet spot is at eleven hashtags.
To give you some more answers, the team at social insiders recently analyzed over 75 million Instagram posts published between March 2021 and March 2022 to see what the data said about the relation between Instagram hashtags and post views. The research shows that the number of hashtags an Instagram post has does not influence post distribution.
How to use hashtags to get a brands attention
Go to the brand’s profile that you want to collaborate with and check what and who they follow. Brands follow specific hashtags and if you want to get in front of their eyes, use those hashtags. So, mix well-known and niche hashtags to expand your discoverability.
This helps with categorizing your content. So maybe the hashtag influencer has millions of posts. Well, your goal isn’t to get discovered in that category. Your goal is just to categorize your post. So maybe you will use the hashtag influencer if that is a great explanation or descriptor word of that post.
So, use specific hashtags so that your fans can easily search for your content. You can even make your hashtags and do use three to five hashtags. Don’t use hashtags that have nothing to do with your content. It does not help Instagram categorize you.
It gets pushed to the wrong people; they won’t engage with it. Also, don’t use overly generic hashtags. This will make it for people to discover you are a hashtag that is overly used or overpopulated. Hashtags are simple a tool to help you get discovered if you’re using them correctly and if you have great content.
Tags:
#brand collaboration#content creation#discoverability#hashtags#instagram#social media#strategy
