Author: Michael Pollaci

I know everyone visits my blog for the great writing so I am sorry to disappoint today – this will be short and sweet. Today we’ll scratch the surface of measuring hashtags for Instagram posts.

Why should I measure Instagram hashtag performance?

As I stated in my last post, “How to Research Hashtags for Instagram Posts” if you’re not measuring you’re wasting your time.

Here is a quick example:

I changed up my hashtags for my last Instagram post. I don’t mean a slight change. I mean a wholesale change. I really wanted to get a good baseline so I went from these 30 hashtags:

#contractorsofinsta #buildersofinsta #homerenovationlife #marketing #marketingtips #digitalmarketing #seo #website #websitedesign #webdesigner #homebuilder #homebuilders #roofingcontractor #deckbuilding #builder #builders #generalcontractor #commercialconstruction #plumbers #hvac #remodeler #fredericksburg #stafford #staffordva #spotsylvania #virginia #workonafriday

to these 9:

#fredericksburgvirginia #staffordva #offtheladder #buildersofinstagram #contractorslife #remodelers
#generalcontractors #marketinghelp #marketing101

Was there a difference? Heck yeah! And it was all bad!

Here are the resulting numbers:

Profile Visits ↓ 100%
New Follows = No change
Reach ↓ 38%
Impressions ↓ 38%
From Home ↓ 16%
From Hashtags ↓ 68%
From Location ↓ 60%

Now that I have started to measure I can learn which hashtags are effective at reaching the target audience I want to reach. If I’m doing a good job with hashtags and increasing engagement, I will get follows.

When I get someone following me I immediately go to their profile to check out who they are and what they do. If they’re part of my target audience I’ll follow back. If not, I don’t. And, I of course block the Instasex followers – you know the ones… the pretty girls with no posts and 1200 followers.

How do I continue with measuring Instagram hashtag performance?

Listen. Everyone will have their own methods. I know I’m going to get readers (haters) who question my methods and who think I have no idea what I’m talking about but this is how I’m doing it for now.

Since I just started I am in the midst of creating either a spreadsheet or Microsoft Access database to track the hashtags and their performance. Yeah, I know. You think I should just pay for one of the hashtag trackers. I may. But for now I’m going it alone since I don’t have much data yet. If I can figure out how to track without paying for it I’ll let you know.

Anyway, I am adding one hashtag to the nine I used for my last Digital Marketing in 60 Seconds or Less post. I am adding #roofingcontractor.

I will wait two days and visit my Insights to see how my post performed with the new hashtag. If I see a huge jump in engagement I’ll know, almost definitively ( I say almost because it is Friday), that the new hashtag was probably the catalyst. Then I will have to decide where to go from there.

Well, that’s how I’m doing it. You can follow my guide or decide on another path which may very well include hashtag tracking software. It’s totally up to you.

Like James Garner says in “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (great movie) when, Harry Morgan, the Mayor says to him “I guess you know what you’re doing, Sheriff” My response is “I don’t know what I could have said to give you that idea.”

I’ve said from the very first post about Instagram that I’m learning with you. Now, I may not be on my way to Australia, but I am embarking on a journey and I’ve been honest since day one. I’d love for you to stick with me and learn this stuff together.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. I have the comments off to protect against SPAM but you can fill out this quick form and if you give me permission, I’ll post your questions / comments here.

 

How do you research hashtags for Instagram posts…? Good ol’ hard work.

It’s that simple.

There’s no magic bullet. There’s no mysterious formula like the juicedratic equation. And sadly, there’s no Fortress Hashtag where our supervillain, the Darth Hash, concocts diabolical hashtags to subliminally draw people’s attention to posts (sorry – I’m listening to Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries” as I write this and it reminds me of Darth Vader).

Research takes plain old hard work. Having said that, there are plenty of companies out there offering up software that will help you choose hashtags. But, to be honest, they’re not doing anything you can’t do on your own. And I’d bet you’d do a better job anyway.

Below I will give you a step by step guide on how you can do the research for Instagram hashtags. But, before I get to that, let’s talk about the why.

Why do I have to research  hashtags for Instagram?

Like anything else you do, you don’t want to waste your time.

You’re posting on Instagram to build an audience so people will buy your stuff or hire you to do crap they don’t want to do or can’t do. It’s business. And business is hard enough without you wasting time posting things that never get seen.

We post so people will see us as the go-to for their website design and Google My Business Management & Optimization (snuck in my shameless plug using that literary license I talked about yesterday…😁). I mean, I’m grateful that my sisters and my mom like my promotional posts but, to be brutally honest, there is no way I could care any less! They’re not my target audience and they conflate my Instagram Insights.

This is why we want targeted hashtags. We want to be sure we are attracting the correct audience. More importantly, we want to ensure we’re growing our targeted audience.

Last week, when I first started talking about this topic in my post, Why Use Hashtags When I Post to Social Media?, I talked about my mea culpa that “I never took the time to learn much about them” and now, just a week later I wish that wasn’t so true. When I started posting my Digital Marketing in 60 Seconds or Less videos, I had about 45 or so followers. Now I’m up to 219.

Imagine how many I would have if I knew how to use hashtags when I started.

Look, this stuff is important. And, if you’re going to post on Instagram or any other social media channel, you may as well do it right instead of wasting 3 months like I did.

What do Hashtags actually do?

That’s easy. Hashtags allow your posts to be found by people in your targeted audience who follow that hashtag. As an added bonus, your posts with the hashtag they’re following may show up in their main page feeds.

This is why it so important top get this stuff right. A great hashtag strategy can catapult a post’s engagement and catapult a campaign to incredible success. But, you have to use relevant hashtags. Because Instagram is allowing users to follow hashtags they also give users the power to mark hashtagged content as something they don’t want to see or in simple terms; SPAM.

Admittedly, it is a bit more involved than someone reporting your post as SPAM. And, considering how we all know way leads on to way, I’m hoping to come back to that topic later – fingers crossed🤞🏼.

So now you know why it’s important and you know why you have to research great, relevant hashtags, let’s get into how to research Instagram hashtags.

How to research hashtags for Instagram posts

Let’s first get through the step by step guide then we’ll talk about what we’re looking for.

Step 01

Navigate to your profile and click on the search icon at the bottom of the screen.

Step 02

Click to get the search started. You will immediately be brought to the next screen.

Step 03

Click on the “TAGS” tab.

Step 04

Start typing your hashtag search.

Let’s take a look at what I found when I searched for ‘contractors’, my main target.

The first two hashtags that come up are #contractorsofinsta and #contractors. Great! But it shows the people I follow who are following that hashtag instead of the number of posts. Not sure why… I tried to duplicate it but couldn’t. I’m kinda glad it came up so I can show you but it’s not exactly what I was looking for.

Anyway, as you can see UNDER the two errant hashtags on top, the hashtag search tool lets you know how many posts include that hashtag. This is great information. You can see if the hashtag is popular and worth using and you can see if the hashtag is too popular to bother. I’ll use my ‘#love’ hashtag example. With literally millions of posts a day using the ‘love’ hashtag there is no way my post can be found.

This is where your decision making acuity comes in to play.

You have to decide what to use. It’s pretty random at first but you have to start somewhere.

I’m still doing my own research so giving you a definitive answer as to how you make that decision may not be in the cards today. I can tell you that I look for around 10K to 25K posts. I feel that is enough traffic to be relevant but not enough to get buried. On the other hand we use some hashtags, especially for our niche like #contractors that have over 500K posts. There is a place for those as well but I’m convinced we will get more targeted eyes by using hashtags with fewer posts.

I’ll let you know a definitive answer (opinion) when we have enough sample data.

That brings up my next point. Once you get started you should measure the results so you can make better more informed decisions later.

We’ll talk about how to measure the hashtag performance in a later post but for now here is your actionable step. Make a list of ten hashtags using our guide on the types of hashtags you should use for your Instagram posts. That would be two Community hashtags, two Subject hashtags, two Niche hashtags, two Location hashtags, and two Branded hashtags. Start using them on your next post.

Then make another list of ten and another and another and another. It’s not good practice to use the same hashtags over and over (I’ve read this on several blogs so I’m going with it for now… if and when it is shown to me that this is bad information I will update this post) except for the branded hashtags (we use #staffordtechnologies in every post now).

Next we’ll talk about how many hashtags is optimal, when the best time to post on Instagram is, and how to measure your hashtag performance. There’s a lot to cover over the next few posts – I hope you’ll stick with me.

 

Another one of my favorite poems “The Road Not Taken” explains (loosely – very loosely) how I arrived at today’s Digital Marketing in 60 Seconds or Less (DMSSL) and this accompanying blog.

Robert Frost was an amazing poet. In the poem, Mr. Frost comes upon a fork in the road and randomly decides to take one path over another. In other words, ‘way leads on to way’ (from the poem for those who don’t know it) and when I started researching how to best research hashtags for Instagram I came across the fact that you can change your personal account to a Professional account with the click of a few buttons.

Look, I’m a website guy (the.website.guy 😉) and a Google My Business guy so I’m learning this social media and hashtag stuff with you. I think it’s probably pretty safe to say that there will be many other forks in the road – I only hope we remember to come back to where we are now and explore them all.

Anyway, enough enigmatic philosophical b.s. – we have work to do.

How do I switch to a professional Instagram account and why does that matter? GREAT question… I’m so glad you asked.

Why does switching to a professional Instagram account help with hashtag research?

With a personal account insights are not available to you for your posts. With a professional Instagram account they are.

Mic drop – I’m out!

That’s all you really need to know.

With insights you can now start understanding how people are interacting with your posts and hashtags. Now, when you change hashtags, you’ll be able to measure if there is a drop or increase in engagement and make decisions based on real data instead of a whim and a prayer.

A for instance…

For the last episode of DMSSL, after I had completed the research on the types of hashtags for Instagram, in knee-jerk fashion, I changed all of my Instagram hashtags. I sat back and looked pridefully at my work. It literally took well over an hour to come up with even a rudimentary strategy following the formula I gave. I was happy.

Then…

Well, then I thought to myself, how the heck am I going to figure out if my new strategy has any affect (affect or effect… I’m so confused!) whatsoever on what I’m doing? Hence the ‘road not taken’.

I’ll spare you the details of how I came across the information on switching account types. All that matters is now, because I’ve switched to a professional account, when I post this Monday morning I’ll be able to track engagement and get insights on how my followers are interacting with my posts. Then, when I change hashtags, I should be able to see what kind of affect they’re having.

As a former hammer swinging sage and philosopher once said; Right tool for the right job.

Okay, so how do you set up a Professional Instagram account?

I’m getting there…

It’s actually pretty easy. Once you get to the right place you just follow the prompts. I haven’t figured out if you can do this from your desktop so I’ve taken some screenshots form my phone to illustrate.

Here’s where you go:

Step 01

Go to your profile and hit the Edit button:

Side Note: When I started posting videos I had 47 followers. 3 months later I have 219… VIDEO WORKS!

Step 02

Hit settings at the bottom of the page.

Step 03

Click on “Switch to Professional Account” towards the bottom of the screen.

Step 04

Choose what type of profile suits you best. We chose “Business”.

Step 05

Click through on the next four screens (I hate when apps waste my time!) until you get to “Select A Category”. Pretty self explanatory… choose your business category by typing and then using the autofill from the list given. We chose “Website Designer”.

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Step 06

Review/edit your contact information for the available profile buttons.

Step 07

YOU’RE DONE!

Step 08

Now you can check out the Insights tab and get a feel for what’s to come.

What’s next?

There won’t be anything in your Insights tab yet. Instagram won’t go back in your history. But, now you’re set up to start measuring engagement for the hashtags you use. You’re on your way to making informed decisions that can help you climb the ranks in this everchanging digital marketing landscape.

Notice how I used the image of a landscape to come full circle to the beginning imagery of “The Road not Taken” in the woods. Pretty nifty way of saying, “I’m not saying what’s next because I don’t know what path my research will take me on and what I’ll be exploring next”… without actually saying it.

Watch out and don’t try that at home!

Only trained and highly skilled professionals who have completed college level literature and writing courses and own a literary license can do this kind of stuff…

OMG!

When I decided to take a look into hashtags the other day I hadn’t realized the Pandora’s box I was opening for myself. I can see it now…😓 I will immerse myself for months into this topic just as I had for Google My Business.

My family will be leaving food at my office door and no one will see me for weeks at a time. I’ll emerge some months later transformed into this half hashtag half human being caught in a spiderweb 🕸 with Uncle Francois (One of my favorite Vincent Price characters) aghast in horror while Inspector Charas flattens me with a large rock.

Well… May as well start the transmogrification (I love that word – I learned it in a writing poetry class in college. It’s from a great poem called Janet Waking).

What are the most popular Instagram hashtags?

As of July 2020, the 40 most popular Instagram hashtags are as follows:

#love	#picoftheday	#girl	#igers
#instagood	#follow	#fun	#tagsforlikes
#photooftheday	#me	#style	#follow4follow
#fashion	#selfie	#smile	#nofilter
#beautiful	#summer	#food	#life
#happy	#art	#instalike	#beauty
#cute	#instadaily	#likeforlike	#amazing
#tbt	#friends	#family	#instamood
#like4like	#repost	#travel	#instagram
#followme	#nature	#fitness	#photography

I felt it was important to post this list for you to see that while they get millions of posts a day, the top hashtags will probably not help you in your marketing efforts.

Look at it this way. If the hashtag #love has been used in 1.2 billion posts (that’s a lot!) how will your post about the new decking material you just used stand out? Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean you should use it.

What types of hashtags should I use?

There are literally millions of hashtags on Instagram. You may ask, “How do I choose the right hashtags for my campaign?” and that would be a great question.

I think you should start with understanding the types of hashtags that will help you in marketing your product or services.

For our purposes, I have decided on 5 types of hashtags that research has shown to be effective when marketing. They are: community, subject, niche, location, and brand.

Community

By far the community type of hashtag encompasses the lion’s share of subcategories. We’ll look at community as an association or interest group you’re a part of such as #contractorsofinsta or #homerenovationlife.

Subject

This type of hashtag will be used to tag the things your talking about in your post. A good hashtag for this blog for instance would be #hashtags. You can use things like #deckbuilding or #plumberstips.

Niche

We know you’re part of a community or interest group from your community hashtag, now use niche hashtags to attract the specific audience you’re looking for such as #roofingcontractor or #builders.

Location

Most small businesses do their business, well… locally. Be sure to include hashtags that will attract your local audience like #staffordva or #fxbg.

Brand

Create a hashtag for your brand like #staffordtechnologies (found this hashtag from something I posted 5 years ago!). It may take a while – a long while – for it to pick up steam but once it does it will allow your followers to see all the things you post rather than just seeing posts from the other hashtags they are following. In other words, a plumber may be following us for #marketingforplumbers but may get just as much value from a post we made for #deckbuildermarketing.

How do I use this to create a hashtag strategy for Instagram?

This is just the beginning of the journey. We still need to talk about how many hashtags to use and how to find the best hashtags.

For now, take a look at what you’re currently doing and see if these five types of hashtags are included. If not, add one or two that seem to make sense for now and we’ll see if we can’t help you find the best hashtags to use in our next blog and on our next episode of Digital Marketing in 60 Seconds or Less.

 

Hashtags…

When we saw the first use of the hashtag on Twitter in 2007 (August 23 to be exact… WHY DO I KNOW THAT!😖 ) we all thought it was kind of cool but no one ever knew they would become a prevalent part of the worldwide lexicon. Nor did we know they would become the bane of a marketers existence.

My mea culpa: I never took the time to learn much about them.

They’re a mystery and the secret formula is sealed away in a safe. In a vault. In a volcano.

Why are hashtags important?

Now that I am posting almost daily videos they have become pretty important to me. I know I need them but I know I’m not using them correctly. For instance, I have recorded and posted 64 episodes of Digital Marketing in 60 Seconds or Less (DMSSL) and I have used the same collection of 30 or so hashtags on every one of the social media accounts I post my videos on.

That’s definitely not the right way to do it…

But I figured I would get to the hashtag research later and for now posting some kind of hashtag is better than posting no hashtags at all. I would venture to say that’s true for most people using hashtags.

There are very differing opinions about hashtags. Some say to use as many as you can. Some say limit the number to 7 or 9. Some say don’t use them at all and your engagement will improve.

There is a study that states an Instagram post with at least one hashtag gets 12.6% more engagement (a measurement of public shares, likes and comments) than a post without. I want some of that! But how?

How important are they on other social media platforms?

How much engagement do they recieve elsewhere?

How do I create a hashtag?

Should I create my own hashtags?

There are a litany of questions that must be answered before we can confidently say we are using a well thought out, well structured hashtag strategy. I hope to figure out that strategy and share it with you.

Should I stop using hashtags?

Obviously hashtags are not going away and I’m tired of losing to the competition because I’m not using them correctly. You should be too.

Does it mean I should stop using hashtags for now?

No.

Does it mean I can use one of the most popular hashtags such as #love and my post about digital marketing for contractors will get 12.6 shares, likes or comments rather than 0?

Definitely not.

I’m not saying to stop using them. I’m also not saying to use them with no rhyme or reason. After all a post about digital marketing for contractors with a hashtag of #love will be one of about 3 million Instagram posts daily using the same hashtag – good luck getting found there!

On the contrary. Use them as you are but we have to start learning how to use them correctly on all the major social media platforms. I do believe an effective hashtag strategy can help propel your posts and get you to the top of the heap in your industry.

What now?

I’m going to be taking a look at hashtags over the next several blog posts and DMSSL episodes. My goal is to figure out the best strategies for using hashtags on the following:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Youtube
• TikTok (if it’s still around)

Let’s learn more about hashtags together and see if we can’t climb the face of the volcano and crack the code on the safe.