Hashtags, hashtags, hashtags, you hear about them
all the time and you see people using them
so you know they're important, but you
don't know how to use them.
I'm Sue B. Zimmerman, and today I'm
going to teach you the basics on how to use hashtags
on Instagram in your business.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hashtags are simply the words or phrases
that have the pound sign in front of them.
These are clickable links that add you to groups of posts
where other people have used the same hashtags.
You can also search words or phrases
right in the Explorer tab.
And when you do, it will lead you to posts
with hashtags that fit what you've searched,
like you can see here when searching Cape Cod.
When adding hashtags to your post,
you need to remember not to add spaces or symbols,
but having numbers is totally fine.
Hashtags are the perfect way to expand your post reach,
but there's lots of ways that you can go wrong
with your hashtags.
I'll be giving you three tips to help you pick the hashtags that
will help your business grow.
Number one, pick out hashtags that people are actually using.
Although it's really fun to make up your own hashtag,
using ones that people are using will
help with your organic reach, and there's already
traffic there.
So let's look at jf.illustrations as an example.
She is an amazing Illustrator, and when
you look at her hashtags and you click in to these hashtags,
you will see she's using ones that
make sense for her business.
She is a fashion Illustrator.
She does fashion illustration.
What I want to point out here, when
you go into these hashtag hubs, make
sure that the content that you're looking at
is content that you actually want to be seen in,
because sometimes there's random content that shows up
with slang words or mixed content
and you don't want to be seen in that kind of content.
So fashion sketch is a beautiful hashtag for her.
And I know that she's done her homework.
She's also using her name as a hashtag.
She's saying that she's a hashtag fashion blogger.
She's from Miami.
Location hashtags are good to use if it makes sense for you
to do that.
And then she's actually taking advantage of the fact
that it was the 4th of July and she
used Statue of Liberty, July 4th, all
that are relevant to the actual content that she's sharing.
Here's what I suggest.
Start with a brainstorm of terms that you use
to talk about your business.
So think about the combination of terms that
make sense and are relevant.
So if you're an Illustrator, go ahead into that hashtag hub,
look up the hashtag and see if anyone is actually using it,
and obviously there are a lot of people using it.
And then look at the other posts that are in the hashtag hub.
Most importantly, is this the content
that you expected to see, because sometimes you'll
be surprised at the random slang words or mixed content
that you can find in some hashtags,
and you don't want to waste your time there.
Now if Illustrator is who you are, if you're an Illustrator,
going into the related hashtags is a really good strategy
to see if that content is also visual content that you
want to show up in.
And keep looking at the related hashtags
that Instagram is suggesting, especially if you
are a digital Illustrator.
There's so many great hashtags here that are being suggested.
So what you should be doing is find these suggested hashtags
and really spend time discovering.
I always tell people to spend time in the top nine
and to click in to the ones that actually get your attention.
So this one here, for example, is getting my attention.
So going into that account could be interesting,
and it is a very inspirational account.
Spending time here, if you're an Illustrator,
finding content, looking at what they're doing,
looking at the hashtags that they're using
is also a really good idea.
Number two is pick the right amount of hashtags
because research has shown that posts
that use 11 or more hashtags do get the most traffic.
Buffer does a really good job with their hashtags
and makes sure that they use the ones that
are relevant to the content that they're sharing.
You also have to be careful that every single hashtag that you
use is actually bringing people in to you,
back to you, back to your account.
Here's an end to tip, use your comment section
to add the bulk of your hashtags like Buffer did here,
and this way your post descriptions are really clean.
They have three hashtags in their description,
but as you can see, the bulk of them
were immediately added right after they posted,
and that's really important too is to add them right away.
And my third tip is to make sure that each hashtag
that you use for your business actually
will drive traffic back to your business,
or get eyeballs on your business.
So this could be as simple as a description of your product,
the materials that you're using, whether it's
a locally-based hashtag.
Everything you pick should make sense,
just like these hashtags did for Editor App.
And this means that you should not
use hashtags that are not relevant to your business
just because they're popular.
They should always align with your content and your theme.
Here's an end to tip, make a document, either in Evernote,
I use my iPhone, where you have a bunch of your hashtags
saved for an easy and quick copy and paste into your post,
especially if you're going to put it in the comments.
This is going to save you a lot of time
and it will cut back on any spelling errors.
Hashtags can be a headache, but they
are crucial for your organic Instagram growth.
Those are the basics, but there is so much more
to learn, so at linked right here in the description
below two things for you.
The first one is an advanced hashtag social media class.
And the second one is my hashtag handbook.
This is essentially a library of over 35 different hashtag
categories.
And for the week that this video is posted,
you can get 20% off, which is 38.38,
so check those out to learn even more about mastering hashtags.