Instagram hashtags can make or break your Instagram marketing strategy. There are still an effective way to get more eyes (and engagement) on your Instagram posts in 2021.

Use them correctly and you’ll get your posts seen by more people likely to be interested in your products or brand. A post with at least one Instagram hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag. So it really is worth creating a hashtag strategy for your brand if you want to grow your account!

I can still remember when I first came across the foreign concept of “hashtags.” It must have been around 2013, and back then I thought hashtags were just a cheeky little gimmick. My friends and I started speaking in hashtags to make fun of the hashtag world e,g. #lagosnigeria #madeinnigeria #nigerian #nigerianfashion

Fast forward to today and the hashtag playing field has changed dramatically. I am now keenly aware of how powerful and critical hashtags are for the social media strategies of marketers in every industry.

This ultimate guide to Instagram hashtags will help you understand everything you need to know about using hashtags to get more followers, improve your engagement rate, and build a community around your business.

Ready to learn how to use Instagram hashtags strategically? Let’s get started!

What are Instagram hashtags?

A hashtag is a combination of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by the # symbol (e.g., #NoFilter). They are used to categorize content and make it more discoverable.

Hashtags are clickable. Anyone who clicks on an Instagram hashtag or conducts an Instagram hashtag search will see a page showing all the posts tagged with that hashtag.

Why Instagram Hashtags Are Important

Instagram has gone through a lot of changes since 2010, but through it all, one thing has stayed consistent: the importance of Instagram hashtags.

Even in 2021, using relevant, targeted hashtags on your posts and stories is one of the best ways to get discovered by new audiences on Instagram. And this can translate into more engagement, more followers, and more customers for your business.

Instagram hashtags work by organizing and categorizing photos and videos.

If you have a public Instagram account and add a hashtag to a post, that post will be visible on the corresponding hashtag page (it’s basically a directory of all the photos and videos that were tagged with that hashtag).

Since hashtags are used with an intent to discover content, the right hashtags can put you in front of your target audience, even if they haven’t connected with you before.

By using hashtags, the post is cataloged so other Instagram users who enjoy your posts can easily find it.

A few things to keep in mind:

• When people with private profiles tag posts, they won’t appear publicly on hashtag pages
• Numbers are allowed in hashtags. However, spaces and special characters, like $ or %, won’t work.
• You can only add hashtags to your own posts. You can’t tag other people’s photos/videos.
• You can use up to 30 hashtags on a post and 10 on Instagram Stories.

The Top Instagram Hashtags in Nigeria 2021

While using ultra-popular hashtags isn’t always the best strategy for getting more engagement on your posts and stories, here is an up-to-date list of the top Instagram hashtags in Nigeria:

The Different Types of Instagram Hashtags

Understanding the different types of hashtags and their corresponding audiences is key to developing an effective Instagram hashtag strategy:

#1: Community Hashtags

Community hashtags are hashtags that connect like-minded users around a specific subject. They’re a great way to connect with others, improve the searchability of your posts, gain followers, and grow your own community.

Here are 9 different types of community hashtags you can use for your business:

1. Hashtags indicating your product or service, like #sweater or #coffeeshop
2. Hashtags indicating your niche in your industry, like #weddingphotographer or #digitalmarketing
3. Hashtags for Instagram communities in your industry, like #bakersofinstagram or #foodiesofinstagram
4. Hashtags for special events or seasons, like #independenceday or #christmas2021day
5. Hashtags using locations, like #lagosbaker, #madeinnigeria, or #abujaconnect
6. Daily hashtags, like #mondaymotivation, #tuesdaytip, or #throwbackthursday
7. Hashtags with phrases relevant to what you do, like #fitnesscoach or #cakelover
8. Hashtags with acronyms, like #qotd (quote of the day) or #ootd (outfit of the day)
9. Hashtags with emojis, like #????

We recommend using a variety of hashtags on your posts and stories so your posts can reach different communities. For example, if you run a fashion account, you could use #womensfashion to reach users looking for women fashion or #fashioninspo to give out fashion design or styling tips.

#2: Branded Hashtags

A branded hashtag is a hashtag that’s unique to your company when using Instagram for business.

It can be as simple as your company name, tagline, or the name of one of your products or campaigns. Or it can be a hashtag that has nothing to do with your brand name but everything to do with your brand identity!

While community hashtags are meant to increase the reach of your message, branded hashtags are designed to connect themes for you and your audience. They can be used to promote a campaign or collect user-generated content (UGC).

Getting your Instagram followers to use your branded hashtag in their posts and stories is key to getting discovered on Instagram by new audiences.

Once you create your hashtag, remind customers they can use your business’ hashtag by sharing it on your stories or calling it out in your captions. This way, your followers can tap the hashtag and see other posts about your business.

It’s also a good idea to follow your branded hashtag to keep track of new content that’s being shared!

#3: Campaign Hashtags

While branded and community hashtags are meant to last, campaign hashtags are usually shorter-term and run for just a few days, a season, or a year.

The reason campaign hashtags are shorter-term is that they’re usually tied to specific campaigns, like new product launches, special events, or partnerships. So they’re great for building a lot of engagement in a short period of time!

How to Find the Best Instagram Hashtags for Your Account

When used correctly, Instagram hashtags can help you grow your reach, get more engagement, and attract more followers.

But in order to be successful with hashtags, you need to be strategic about what hashtags you use and when you use them.

While the most popular hashtags on Instagram have been used millions of times, that doesn’t mean you’re going to get a ton of likes and comments simply by adding them to your posts.

Instead of using the most popular Instagram hashtags, it’s better to find and use hashtags that are smaller, more niche, and have an engaged audience that’s relevant to your industry.

So, how can you find these cool, creative, and community-oriented hashtags?

The best way is to look and see what Instagram hashtags your audience, competitors, and industry leaders are already using.

We’ve noticed that the more niche the topic, the more conversations users are having around it, so it pays off to really hone in on a topic or theme. And you’d be surprised by how niche hashtags can get!

For example, let’s say you’re posting a photo of Football. Instead of just tagging #football (with over 86 million posts), you could also tag #footballskills and #soccer to reach a more targeted audience of people who really love Football. This is the best way to get a lot of targeted engagement on your posts!

Here are 5 ways to find the best Instagram hashtags for your account:

1. Do your hashtag research

First and foremost, it is important to realize that the art of hashtagging is much more than simply adding the hash sign in front of words you think of. To use hashtags in your Instagram content in a meaningful and effective way you need to do your research. So where to start? Here are a few ideas…

• Use online tools: There are tons of Instagram hashtag generators out there—like All Hashtag, Ingramer, and Sistrix—that will generate relevant hashtags and give you some data on what hashtags are popular.

• Start searching: Type hashtag ideas into the Instagram search bar and see what autofills.
• Check your competitors: See what your competition is doing, as well as brands and account that your target audience is likely following. Getting inspiration from other accounts can be super helpful to gain an understanding of what hashtags are trending.

The key to selecting good hashtags is to ensure they are on target with your target audience’s interests, and popular but not overly popular—you don’t want to get lost in the clutter.

2. Don’t over hashtag

While it might be tempting to hashtag your little heart away on each post, it isn’t good to go overboard on hashtags. When it comes to having more of an impact with your hashtag game, it can actually pay off more to be picky. In fact, research has found that the optimal number of hashtags per post is 11.

While Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post, your time is better spent researching and using a handful of super-effective hashtags rather than stockpiling a ton of tags per post.

3. Get inspired by other Instagrammers in your industry

There is absolutely nothing wrong with spying on your competition from time to time. In fact, when it comes to hashtagging this can be a super useful investigative activity. Joining in on trendy industry topic hashtags and finding niche industry-related tags that your audience is likely following can be insanely beneficial for upping your hashtag game.

4. Keep your hashtags consistent—but not too consistent

As discussed above, it is important to research your hashtags for each post and ensure you aren’t using hashtags that are overly popular. If you do, your posts are likely to get lost in the sea of other hashtagged posts. But should you be using a new set of five to 10 hashtags for every single post you compose?

The answer is no. There is absolutely nothing wrong with re-using the same well-researched, highly targeted hashtags if those are what appeal to your audience. In fact, you should keep a note handy so you can easily copy and paste your commonly used hashtags into new posts. However, spicing things up a bit is also encouraged. For example, use the same five or so on-brand hashtags, but add in a few new ones that are even more relevant to the photograph or video you are sharing. Relevancy is critical when it comes to hashtag use: If someone is exploring a hashtag and your super irrelevant post pops up, it could make the entire brand look unreputable.

5. Use hashtagging to connect

Another wonderful thing about hashtags is that they are a great way to connect with others and build a community. Keeping an eye on trending hashtags can help you discover new partners and engage those who are in your target market. Building an Instagram marketing campaign around a hashtag can also be a super useful way to partner up with a related brand. This will help you gain even more exposure since this partner brand will be posting about your company to their entire audience.

Not only does this type of hashtag campaign get both audience’s followers involved, but it also grows the brand awareness for each company with exposure to an even larger audience.

7 Ways to Optimize Your Instagram Hashtags

Hashtags on Instagram really can be an effective way to grow your following and engagement, but the best practices are constantly changing.

A great Instagram hashtag strategy doesn’t just reach more people — it reaches the right people for your business. Here are 8 tips for optimizing your Instagram hashtags to reach your target market and grow your engagement:

Tip #1: Check Your Instagram Hashtag Analytics

Looking at the performance of the hashtags you’ve used in the past can be a great way to decide what hashtags to use again in the future.

Instagram’s native analytics tool offers some of this data, but the insights are fairly limited.

Tip #2: Try to Get Into the “Top” Results for a Hashtag

If you’ve ever searched for a hashtag on Instagram, you’ve probably noticed “Top Posts” are at the top of the results page.

Getting in the top posts for a hashtag is a great way to get discovered by new users. Like getting featured on the Explore Page, it can result in a huge network effect that essentially makes your post go viral on Instagram.

So how do you actually get into the Top Posts for a hashtag?

Based on our experience, the two factors that play the biggest role in determining whether a post gets into the top posts for a hashtag are how much engagement the post gets, and how quickly it gets that engagement.

Top posts generally take their position within the first 24 hours of posting, so you need those likes and comments to roll in quickly after posting. If you can generate a lot of engagement on your Instagram post shortly after posting, this signals to Instagram that your post is quality, engaging content.

Tip #3: Include Your Branded Hashtag in Your Instagram Profile

Thanks to the recent updates, you can now add clickable hashtags (and usernames) to your Instagram bio, making it a lot easier to build an Instagram bio that converts to website visits!

What’s so great about this feature is that it makes your bio even more functional — you can use hashtags for everything from promoting your Instagram community to highlighting your branded content and announcing your Instagram campaigns.

All you have to do is include a “#” before any word in your bio and it will automatically become a clickable link that leads visitors to that hashtag.

Tip #4: Post Your Hashtags in the First Comment

While adding hashtags to your posts is one of the best ways to boost your engagement and get your posts in front of your target audience, too many hashtags in your captions can look untidy (or worse, spammy!).

Instead, posting your hashtags in the first comment is a great way to make your caption the star of the show, without compromising any of the engagement you can get with hashtags.

Tip #5: Add Hashtags to Your Instagram Stories

Did you know you can add hashtags to your Instagram Stories too?

Adding hashtags to your story is a great way to give your content an added chance to be discovered by new audiences.

When people search for a hashtag on Instagram, if it’s popular enough, they’ll be able to see a collection of tagged stories on the search results page — including yours!

You can add as many as 10 hashtags to each Instagram story, including 1 clickable hashtag sticker.

TIP: Don’t make your hashtag text too small — if it becomes illegible, Instagram won’t pick up on it and it’s unlikely your post will appear in any hashtag searches.

Tip #6: Entice Your Followers to Follow Your Branded Hashtag

In a big update from 2018, Instagram added the ability to “follow” hashtags, meaning you can now stay up-to-date on various topics (or communities) by following a hashtag related to your interests.

Following a hashtag works just like following a user’s profile. When you find a hashtag you’d like to follow you simply open the hashtag page and tap on the follow button.

For brands and businesses, this opens up a great opportunity to regularly appear in a follower’s feed. For example, if you have a branded hashtag for your business, you can invite your followers to also follow your unique hashtag.

This means that your content could appear twice in a follower’s feed — once as they follow your profile, and once again as they follow the hashtag. It doubles your chances of engagement!

Tip #7: Avoid Using Banned Hashtags on Instagram

Last but not least, our final tip is to avoid using banned hashtags on your Instagram posts.

Banned hashtags have been flagged and “disabled” by Instagram for infringing community guidelines — making them completely useless for your brand exposure.

What’s more, even seemingly innocent hashtags are on the banned list, such as #humpday and #elevator, so it’s definitely worth giving your tags a quick check!

You can view a list of banned Instagram hashtags here.

Conclusion

Now, you should now be fully equipped to go out into the world and conquer Instagram hashtagging to accomplish your business-related goals. We’re excited to see you take your hashtag game to the #nextlevel!

Using Instagram hashtags strategically is a great way to connect with customers, find content created about you by your followers, and build long-term relationships with influential partners!

Always remember that every one of the Instagram hashtags you use on a post must fit with the content and should not be too repetitive. Don’t copy and paste your whole saved list onto every post.