Using Hashtags To Increase Your Reach
We’ve all seen hashtags (especially on Instagram), and generally understand their purpose. However, many business owners aren’t sure exactly how to use hashtags to increase the reach of their posts. It’s more than just adding relevant hashtags! Using proper hashtags for your niche and your posts is a great way to get your posts seen, and hashtags can also be a great way for you to network! Let’s take a look at a few ways to use hashtags for your benefit.
What Are Hashtags?
Put simply, hashtags are descriptors that allow a platform to categorize posts. A user can search for a specific hashtag to find posts that interest them or even follow a hashtag to see posts by many different users that reference that particular hashtag. The more niche your hashtag, usually the fewer posts there will be with that hashtag – and also the fewer users there will be. For example the hashtag “Dogs of IG” is much more broad than the hashtag “Pugs of IG,” though they both reference dogs.
Why Use Hashtags?
Using hashtags well means reaching more users that are interested in your type of content – for free! Learning to use hashtags that are related to both your single posts and your general niche can be a great benefit for expanding the reach of your content.
Other Benefits of Hashtags
In addition to using hashtags yourself, knowing hashtags related to your niche can help you network. Hashtags make it easy for you to find many people in your niche who are both posting and commenting on posts that are related to yours. This is also a great way to find new ideas for your own content and help relieve writers block by seeing new types of content you can post.
How Can I Find The Right Hashtags?
A great way to begin creating hashtags for your content is to write down all of the keywords that come to mind when you consider your niche. Search these keywords to find broad hashtags that are related to these keywords. Additionally, find other accounts with similar content and write down some of the hashtags they use that are relevant to your content. Finally, search these hashtags that you’ve written to find other hashtags that are often used alongside them that are more specific but still relevant for your content. This will give you a great starting bank of hashtags to use for your content!
There you have it! An easy way to begin strategically and intentionally using hashtags to increase the reach of your content. It’s important to remember to keep your bank of hashtags handy (I like to keep them in a note on my phone as well as my computer), and always make sure the hashtags are relevant to the content you create. A popular hashtag isn’t helpful if the audience for that hashtag isn’t interested in your niche. Take a few minutes this week and create a bank of hashtags for your content!
Do you currently use hashtags for your content?
Have you ever personally searched a hashtag to find content you enjoy?
