The summer season is not just for frolicking in the sun and drinking mimosas on patios. It’s also the time when Instagram (or ultimately Facebook) starts tweaking their programs or algorithm and then pretends that they didn’t change a thing. It’s also the time when social media marketers tend to get their best content (depending on the industry) and when we have the hardest time getting the engagement numbers.
You know the drill, people are away on holidays and checking their phones and Instagram feeds less and less, sometimes they are even completely avoiding it altogether. Between summer vacation and Instagram (not) tweaking their rhythm, it can be a truly frustrating time for businesses. Thankfully, we always have hashtags to our rescue, it’s all just a matter of finding the exact right hashtags for your business and knowing how to use them properly.
Hashtag Follows
First things first. Before we do a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of hashtags, we should check-in. It’s 2019, do you know you can follow a certain hashtag as easily as you can follow a person or business. Truly engaged Instagram users will hop on a hashtag and ride that wave through their newsfeed where they will see hashtag specific updates. It’s a truly great way to get your content in front of your audience.
Following a tag will also help you get a good idea of what your peers and competitors are doing on their feed – essentially it can help keep you inspired AND keep you from making the same social faux pas as others in your industry.
Switch Up Your Hashtags!
If you’re like most people who have done their research and settled on their top tags, you probably simply copy and paste your hashtags into your posts (or the comment section). We understand this rut, but it really is a hashtag rut that you need to get out of.
Did you know that Instagram will actually start marking you as spam if you don’t start switching up your hashtags? It’s true and it has an easy fix! Do more research to find more tags that are relevant to your brand and industry to get a few groups of hashtags together that you can swap in and out of your content. Or better yet, come up with them on the fly!
Not sure what to research? Like we mentioned in the point above, you can follow your favourite hashtags and then look to see what influential people or companies are tagging with. Check out on your closest competitors to see if there are any hashtags you are missing. There’s always the list of top tags, but you really want to only use a tag if it’s relevant for you.
Keep It Relevant
As you may have noticed, we’ve been harping on using tags that are relevant for your business and industry and there is a reason for it.
Since Instagram gave users the power to follow a hashtag like the would a business, the ‘Gram has also bestowed on its users the ability to completely hide a brand from their feed. Now, one or two people essentially unfollowing you is not the end of the world, until too many people do it and then Insta thinks to themselves that your content must suck so they can decide to just stop boring people with it altogether.
If your content is good you are truly doing yourself a disservice by smacking irrelevant hashtags onto your post.
Of course, there is so much more going on in the Instagram (and hashtag) world that we have just shown you the very tip of the iceberg. Want some help navigating the ever-changing social landscape? We’ve got you covered! Get in touch and we can get together to see how we can help!