What are hashtags and how to use them correctly. Hashtags - what they are and how hashtags are used on Twitter, Instagram and other places where the hashtag is used

Hi all! Vasily Blinov is with you and today I want to tell and show you how to put hashtags on Instagram.

But I’ll start not just with how to make them, but with what they are - hashtags on Instagram, what they are needed for and how to use them correctly in your posts. I believe that without understanding how they work, there is no point in using them.

What is a hashtag on Instagram?

On Instagram, photos are grouped using these tags. Using them you can find photos on a specific topic, place, event, etc. Sometimes you click on tags that interest you and find a lot of interesting information, people and beautiful photos.

Since I travel, I often look at places that people have hashtagged on their Instagram. It happens that through him I contact and meet these interesting guys, ask them about a place, a city, where to go, what to see, etc.

Sorting by hashtags is an indispensable function, but recently many people have begun to use it for purposes other than its intended purpose. Which leads to spamming with wrong photos based on the necessary tag words.

For example, for the tag of my city #Perm there is a very small percentage of live photographs, mainly for it, I would say 90% - this is the sale of clothes, watches, some services and other nonsense. Because of spam and advertising, it simply became useless.

In addition to the fact that hashtags are used throughout Instagram and are seen by other users who do not follow you, they are also needed to sort personal content. Due to the unique words in the tag, you can divide all your photos on Instagram into different topics. For example, I have several topics on which I write and publish posts: #Vasily_about_remote or #Vasily_travel_Bali. Nobody uses hashtags like this, and for me they became unique.

That’s basically all about what hashtags are and why they are needed. I think everyone understands, if you have questions, write in the comments.

How to tag photos?

Everything is simple here, but there are some peculiarities.

To make a hashtag on Instagram on your phone or computer, you need to put the “#” symbol in the description immediately before the word and this word will automatically become a link, when you click on it, a search will open with all the photos in the descriptions or comments to which this hashtag was used.

What do you need to know when writing hashtags on Instagram?

1. You can put hashtags in any part of the text and in the comments. Usually they replace individual words in the text or are written in order through a space at the end of the text or in a separate comment.
2. The tag can be written in both Russian and English, and also contain numbers.
3. It can contain both uppercase and lowercase letters. For example: #Vasily and #Vasily are the same hashtag.
4. If you change at least one letter or symbol in it, then it will be a different hashtag. For example: #travelE and #travelI are different tags.
5. It cannot contain spaces. To write a hashtag consisting of several words, either write them together or separate them with the underscore character “_”. For example: #VasilyBlinov or #Vasily_Blinov.
6. Instagram remembers all the hashtags that you entered earlier, after you enter the hash and the first letter, a list of all words will appear. Also, when you enter “#” and the first letters, the Instagram search will automatically show you a list of tags. Just be careful, because phrases with errors are often shown there.

Instagram remembers hashtags, and the next time you check the hashtag and enter the first letter, it will offer you a ready-made word.

How many tags can you put on Instagram?

The maximum number of hashtags that can be added to a photo is 30. If you accidentally write more, none of them will be published.

I made a separate selection where I collected . This article will help you in generating the right number of words. I saved it in bookmarks and use it as a cheat sheet, I don’t always remember the right words without it, it will also help you choose hashtags if you use promotion services like Pamagram.com, to find a more precise target audience.

Search by hashtags on Instagram

Now we have conveniently made a search on Instagram, you can search in 4 categories:

1. The best
2. Tags
3. Places

To find photos by a specific tag word, go to the application, click on the “magnifying glass” search icon, then click on the text input line and select the “Tags” tab.

How do I use hashtags to gain likes and followers?

The other day I read an interesting article in which a guy talked about how he promotes his posts using hashtags. Well, his scheme is complete crap. First, he publishes a photo on Instagram with one list of hashtags, after a few minutes he deletes this set, writes another in the comment, then deletes it again and writes back the first option.

This is some kind of perversion! I don't understand why you bother so much. Hashtags need to be used, but they do not play a major role, they are only an auxiliary element.

Better worry about the quality of content and photos, put appropriate tags, do it for people. I previously tried to add as many tags as possible to each of my posts, but the result was almost zero.

Firstly, all the popular tags that we usually put last a few minutes. If you click on them an hour after publication, you will not find your photo, it will fly far down the feed, and no one will see it.

Secondly, a bunch of tags in the text make it difficult for your follower to read, and the post doesn’t look very nice.

Third, if you use unique tags to group your posts, then they simply won’t be noticed in a bunch of others.

1. Take high-quality photos and descriptions.
2. Use your own unique tags that will divide your posts into different topics.
3. Don’t add a bunch of unclear and illogical tags.

Thus, by making your account interesting for readers, your subscribers will grow and, accordingly, likes to your photos.

That's all for me, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments. And also subscribe to my newsletter to receive other interesting and useful articles by email.

Time moves quickly, and it is quite difficult to keep up with all its new trends. Social networks, endless correspondence, thousands of different Internet resources surround us every day. If you want to always stay in the center of events and have only relevant information, but you don’t have the necessary amount of time for this, then #hashtag will come to the rescue.

The emergence of a hashtag

The hashtag first appeared on Twitter and only then moved to all social networks familiar to us, be it VKontakte, Facebook or Instagram. But his story began a little earlier, namely in 2007. In short, it was invented by Chris Messina, who was one of the developers of the FireFox browser and was a Twitter user almost at the initial stage.

The idea was to use a special symbol to divide news into categories, which could later make it easier to navigate the Internet and find any information.

But alas, Chris’s ideas did not immediately inspire Twitter developers.

It should be noted that after the fact, hashtags had only a positive impact on the online community, because they not only strengthened, but also created new discussions about brands and events. They also significantly increased the time spent by the user on social networks.

What does this word mean

The word “hashtag”, if we take its original spelling in English (hashtag), consists of two words - hash and tag, which, in turn, are translated as a hash sign and a label.

In order to correctly convey the meaning and meaning, the translation will be more understandable - “hash mark”.

As for the correct spelling of this simple foreign word, everything is quite deplorable, since there is no general opinion on this matter.

Wikipedia alone offers as many as 3 spelling options (“hashtag”, “hashtag” and “hash tag”).

The question of how this word is correctly spelled remains open to this day.

Hashtag# sign

The hashtag is designated as a regular hashtag #. Everyone remembers the good old push-button phones, flip phones and sliders very well.

Every phone had this symbol on its keypad under the number 9. For the most part, it was used to view the balance on the phone, since the same Russian Beeline or Megafon used the code *102# and *100# for this.

Now this icon has evolved in its functions, but has not changed at all.

It still looks like two parallel lines, which are located slightly at an angle to the right and are crossed out by two horizontal lines.

This “grid” became a hashtag, and a hashtag is needed to specify information.

Advantages and disadvantages

Everyone will agree that everything has its pros and cons, be it an object, a message or actions. It would be useful to analyze the hashtag as well.

1. Simplifies information search;
2. Helps you understand the main meaning of the publication without reading the full text of the post;
3. Groups information by topic;
4. Helps you find people with similar interests.

1. In a large volume of information, some hashtags have become too broad in meaning (an example would be #love or #happiness);
2. Not all people know how to use them correctly;
3. To make a topic more specific, you need to come up with longer hashtags, which is difficult to remember.

Terms of use

A hashtag is a fairly universal thing, but it has its limitations. For example, numbers and punctuation marks cannot be used in it.

The only allowed character in a hashtag is the bottom space, and it is used to combine several words in one hashtag. For example, the hashtag “life is beautiful” can be written in two ways: #life is beautiful and #life is beautiful.

The only condition is that it must start with a #hash.

Hashtag is a label that is used to structure content on social networks. You assign your post to a topic, and because... the audience on social networks is quite curious and willingly follows links within the network (especially if there is something relevant or trending there) - then we can receive free traffic, we just need choose the right hashtags and create quality content. I will share my experience :)

Just for starters, this is what the combination looks like: correct and relevant hashtags + content that is interesting to your target audience:

An example of working with VK hashtags in my public page

Let's start with what hashtags are for and why they are used. I have identified 5 reasons:

1. Visible highlighting of keywords;
2. Grouping posts by topic and by cycle (especially relevant for serious projects in social networks, ala https://vk.com/bizness_online);
3. Quick search by hashtags and filtering;
4. Increased coverage and traffic;
5. Protection from content parsers using brand tags.

I didn’t write about the fact that there are bots that monitor special tags and like, subscribe, leave comments, etc. because there is not much benefit from this. But for the appearance of activity, this can be used 😉

How to use hashtags?

There is nothing easier than making a hashtag. You need to put a sign # (hash), and then specify the desired word or phrase (without separating it with spaces) and it will automatically be converted into a link. Example: , . Please note that the case of letters does not matter, i.e. #hashtag = #Hashtag.

A very relevant hashtag these days!

You can put hashtags both in the context of a post and after/before it (and even in the photo description), these are the subtleties of each specific social network. network and below I will give some tips on how best to do it.

Let's summarize the correct spelling:

• You can write in Latin and Cyrillic, even Latin-Cyrillic; 🙂
• The hash mark (#) and the word do not have spaces;
• Hashtags are separated by spaces (#seo #marketing #blog);
• Words in tags do not contain spaces. The space can simply be deleted or replaced with an underscore (#Search Engine Optimization #site_promotion);
• Do not use special characters: +, $, &, %, -, etc.;
• Don't use too long strings of words;
• Use general and author tags so that when you are found using general tags, you can additionally pull up author tags.

The subtleties of working in individual social networks. networks

As I said, there are features of using tags in individual social networks, I will briefly go over them.

Hashtags on Twitter

This is the birthplace of hashtags, because... they came to social media. networks from Twitter, as a convenient clusterer of tweets. Using hashtags greatly increases the reach of a post. I recommend using no more than 2-3 hashtags. 1-2 in context, the rest after the tweet. Don't spam! The effect gets worse if people consider your post to be spam.

To find the right hashtags, use: http://hashtagify.me/ and don’t forget about the trends that are visible on the left.

The ranking is based on the selected group: Popular, Latest, People, Photos, Videos. It is best to get into the popular ones.

Vkontakte and Facebook hashtags

The VKontakte team went further and improved the structuring algorithm. VKontakte hashtags not only group posts, but can also structure posts within a specific community (ala tags on blogs). Example: #seo@seo_romanus, will display all posts with the “SEO” tag specifically in my VKontakte community.

People here are not used to hashtags and consider them something “alien”, unlike Twitter or Instagram. Therefore, insert 1-3 tags in the post (in context or after) and 5-7 in the description of the photo or video that goes with the post. In total, I do not recommend exceeding 10 marks.

Ranked in chronological order (or “interesting first” on VKontakte).

I haven’t found a service for searching hashtags and their coverage, I use a small life hack: I select marker words (single-word and 2-word) and scrape all the posts based on them, then I separate only the hashtags and count the number of mentions in this list. After that, I additionally scrape the number of posts for each unique tag, then put it all into Excel and look at the popular options. It seems to work :)

Hashtags in Odnoklassniki

Everything is the same as in the “big brothers”, but there are tips there. When you enter a hashtag, your classmates will suggest popular options to you. Alya T9 on a smartphone :)

Instagram hashtags

Here hashtags are the main content, because... this is 90% of the information in each entry. 🙂

Read your hashtag carefully and become zen :)

We write up to 30 hashtags. We use relevant, trending tags and our coverage increases dramatically. Subscribers grow easily (often bots, if you use the “correct” tags 🙂), likes flow like a river, etc. Participation in hashtag battles will give an even greater explosion of popularity, for example #the world should know what we are.

Watch video about hashtags

Frequently asked questions about hashtags

• How to search by hashtags?- You can click on the tag and social. the network will give you a selection based on it, or simply enter #NecessaryTag into the search bar of the social network.
• Why are hashtags not working or not active?— Most likely, you added extra spaces or specified prohibited special characters, which is why the label was not converted into a link.
• How to come up with a hashtag?— You don’t need to invent it, you need to indicate relevant tags from existing ones (if you are not sure that your unique tag will be trending), otherwise it will just be a grouping of your posts, without the ability to increase coverage.
• How to create your own hashtag?— Just come up with something unique or original (related to your brand/public, etc.), type it into the search, if you don’t find more than 1 entry, consider that you’ve already created it. In VK and FB it is more effective to create hashtags linked to the public, for example: #hashtag@ID of your Public.
• Is it possible to use the same hashtags in all posts?— Yes, you can, but it’s rational if you write posts on only 1 topic, a very narrow one. Otherwise, you are simply limiting yourself in reaching your audience.

Hashtags on Instagram are one of the important methods for... If almost no one knows about your account yet, then the only free way to tell other users about yourself on Instagram is to make new posts and put relevant (related to the topic of the post) Hashtags under them. You can copy below the most popular hashtags on Instagram for likes and it’s stupid to put this list under every post. But in 2020, they will not give you “quality” subscribers, only online stores and promotion consultants. And good (“engaged”) subscribers are additional . Therefore, if you are looking for “Instagram hashtags for likes”, then you better learn how to put correct Hashtags.

But if you’re lazy, then add our article to bookmarks and write the most popular Hashtags on Instagram for likes. Look at the result and return to our article.

The most popular hashtags on Instagram 2020

Russian #day #night #nature #friends

In English #love #instagood #photooftheday #fashion #beautiful #happy #cute #tbt #like4like #followme #picoftheday #follow #me #selfie #summer #art #instadaily #friends #repost #nature #girl #fun #style #smile #food #instalike #likeforlike #family #travel #fitness #igers #tagsforlikes #follow4follow #nofilter #life #beauty #amazing #instamood #instagram #photography #vscocam #sun #photo #music #beach #followforfollow #bestoftheday #sky #ootd #sunset #sunset

Sometimes, on the contrary, people completely ignore Hashtags on Instagram. There are two reasons:

• it's "unsexy" and looks like spam;
• too lazy to select the right Hashtags (and the most popular Hashtags on Instagram do not produce results).

But believe me, if you learn how to use Hashtags correctly, you will receive FREE new targeted subscribers from every post. Even for (a way to gain live subscribers) you need to be able to choose the right list of Hashtags.

In this article we will tell you how to do this, and for dessert at the very end - three proven schemes for attracting subscribers through Hashtags.

What are Hashtags on Instagram?

A hashtag is a word with a # sign that you place on a photo.

How to find you using Hashtags:

1. Through the main search for Hashtags on Instagram.
2. By clicking on the Hashtag under someone else's photo.

In the main search, people will enter the simplest words - “flowers”, “manicure Moscow”, “cats”, “swimsuits”, etc.

But no one will type multi-syllable hashtags by hand in the search - laziness. But if there is a “long” Hashtag under some interesting photo, then there is a chance that users will use it to go to the general feed of posts with such a Hashtag.

Hence the conclusion - both short (monosyllabic) and long hashtags should be used. Get likes and subscriptions from everyone.

The most popular hashtags on Instagram

High frequency hashtags - with more than 100,000 queries.

Where to look for the most popular Hashtags on Instagram:

• general search on Instagram (enter a word and see the number of requests)
• under the photo in the top search by Hashtags (first 9 photos)
• when searching by Hashtag, pay attention to the line above all photos - there will be similar popular Hashtags
• the most popular hashtags in Russian (by topic - for subscribers, likes, girls, men, makeup, clothes, travel, etc.)

1. Such hashtags “live” for literally a couple of seconds (you will immediately go down in the general feed) - the competition is too high
2. The most popular hashtags like “follow”, “beautiful”, “likes”, etc. will have nothing to do with your post. Therefore, the maximum that will happen is that you will collect . No one will ask what kind of post you have. And for sales you need high involvement - so that people come to your account, read posts, and subscribe. Spend time selecting thematic Hashtags and you will feel the difference (as written below in the article).

What are Hashtags for on Instagram?

1. New subscribers and likes. Hashtags are the best way to gain new followers. If you are “embarrassed” to put hashtags, you will lose subscribers.
2. For - attracting the attention of brands and large publics (put their thematic Hashtag and perhaps they will publish you on their account).
3. . Come up with your own unique Hashtag and always use it so that your subscribers remember it.
4. Navigating your Instagram account. To make your account more interesting, create categories and tag them with appropriate Hashtags. Using them, subscribers who are interested in this section can easily see all the posts on this topic.
5. User content tracking. If people put your brand's Hashtag, then you can find such posts and publish them on your site (with the author's permission). These could be reviews or photos of your establishment, for example. Such user-generated content increases the trust of other Instagram users in you.
6. , marathons, competitions, promotions. If you use such promotion methods, then Hashtags will help you and your subscribers track the necessary information.
7. Selling through Hashtags. So that subscribers can easily order a product/service from you, ask them to put the Hashtag #I want to buy_brand name + e-mail under the corresponding post. If you are just starting out or your assortment is small, then you can track such Hashtags yourself. And also write order details to your clients by email. But then you can use a paid service that does this automatically. And in the future they will appear.

How to collect relevant hashtags on Instagram

Relevant hashtags are those that fit the meaning of your post. Where can I get them?

How to correctly put hashtags on Instagram

1. Maximum - 30 Hashtags under one post (In 2020, according to rumors, it is better to use 5-10 to avoid getting shadowbanned).
2. Change the hashtags under each new post, otherwise you will also be shadowbanned.
3. You can use letters (Russian, Latin), numbers, emoji, underscore (_).
4. Photos in Hashtag searches are sorted by the time the post was published, not by the time you added the Hashtags. This is especially important if you use high-frequency (popular) Hashtags. If you didn’t put them right away when publishing, then it’s already useless, because 700-1000 new posts appear on them per minute and your photo is already far down in the search results.
5. If your profile is private, then photos are not included in the search and you do not need to put hashtags
6. If you put Hashtags in the comments on someone else’s account, then someone else’s photo does not appear in the search for this Hashtag.
7. Innovation— Hashtags in comments even under your own posts don’t work either. It is necessary to put hashtags in the post itself, and not in the first comment.

1. Do not use hashtags from the “black list”. This list is periodically updated, but in general these are tags from the topics: violence, swearing, insults, fat shaming (insults based on excess weight). Sometimes the most popular and therefore spammy tags like “love” are included in this list of prohibited Hashtags.
2. Don't caption your photo with all Hashtags. Girls in swimsuits can afford this, but not business accounts. Explain your photo with text, otherwise the post looks like spam. Even if you are a photo blogger, you can write where and when the photo was taken.
3. Do not insert hashtags into the text of the post, place them below, under the text. Reading text that contains hashtags is unpleasant.
4. Do not publish posts without any hashtags at all! As a rule, selecting hashtags is a separate task. And I'm too lazy to do it. But then be prepared for the fact that no one except your subscribers will see your post and you will lose potential clients. You won't get additional likes or new subscribers.
5. Don’t make hashtags too long - the eye simply cannot perceive such long words - for example, #last minute tours vitaliummoscow.

And now the most interesting and useful: three proven schemes for attracting subscribers through Hashtags.

Update 2019.

Previously, you could put 30 hashtags under each post without fear. In 2020, Instagram may regard this as spam and send you to a shadow ban. Therefore, make 5-15 Hashtags per post (reduce the number of Hashtags indicated below by 2-3 times).

Do you want a lot of likes and “live” subscribers? Don’t put hashtags on Instagram at random, but use one of three tactics:

1. TOP 9
2. Triptych
3. Content plan

TOP 9

The most obvious way of all to promote using Hashtags on Instagram is to reach the TOP 9. These are the photos that you see first in the general search feed for the Hashtag. The photos below are sorted by time of publication, and the TOP 9 remain at the top for a long time.

How do photos get into the TOP 9? The posts that get likes the fastest go there. There is no exact formula, but you can get into the TOP 9 even with a small number of likes. Provided that you typed them quickly (i.e. published them and the likes immediately started pouring in).

If you're just starting out, then don't look at Hashtags with more than 50,000 posts. First, try to get to the top using low-frequency hashtags.

Scheme for reaching the TOP-9

1. We select the most eye-catching photo (to stand out in the general mosaic).
2. Collecting 70 (!) thematic hashtags to your post (see above “Where to look for popular hashtags on Instagram”). Look at what photos your competitors have using these Hashtags and try to do better (go through at least 5-10 Hashtags).
3. Sort Hashtags: 30 high-frequency, 30 mid-frequency, 10 low-frequency (your unique Hashtags and Hashtags with geolocation can be here (for example, #doormoscow)
4. First, publish a post with the first 30 Hashtags. Wait 7-10 minutes.
5. Delete the first ones and publish the second 30 Hashtags instead (you can do so in the comments).
6. Wait about 10 more minutes and delete the second 30 Hashtags, add the last 10 Hashtags. These Hashtags are already here to stay. They are low frequency, relevant (related to the topic of your post). It doesn’t look like spam and no one will think about them: “Fu-fu-fu, these Hashtags again!”

What we have at the output:

• Due to high- and mid-frequency (most popular) hashtags, we quickly (!) collected likes
• then added to the search results for low-frequency hashtags
• got into the TOP 9 for low-frequency hashtags.

Thus, we, beginner Instagrammers, got into the TOP 9 for thematic Hashtags. This means that people will notice us and gradually start subscribing. After some time, we have a chance to reach the TOP 9 for mid-frequency hashtags. But you need to post regularly and gain subscribers (who will add likes). It's not as easy as it seems. It's a JOB! If you have a budget, entrust this work to a content manager. If not, then you will do this work yourself, day after day and month after month. But the result will definitely come, the main thing is to work!

TROIKA

1. Select carefully 90 main thematic hashtags(this selection will include the most popular, thematic, and unique Hashtags).
2. Prepare three posts that are similar in topic (i.e. if a person came to one of these posts using the Hashtag, he would be interested in the other two nearby)
3. Distribute 90 Hashtags evenly across three posts (each will contain popular, thematic, and unique ones)
4. Publish all three posts with a delay of 5-15 minutes.

What we have at the output:

90 thematic Hashtags are the maximum coverage in your field. Instead of 30 Hashtags, you get simultaneous coverage of 90 Hashtags. Plus, most likely, a person who is interested in one of your posts will also be interested in the other two. This way you will get the maximum number of likes on all three posts. And a greater probability of reaching the TOP-9.

CONTENT PLAN

Schemes are all well and good, but you also need a long-term plan for developing your Instagram account.

1. For maximum coverage you need to select 210 Hashtags
2. Divide these 210 Hashtags by 7 (number of days per week)
3. We get 30 Hashtags per day, divide by 3 posts per day
4. In total, our content plan includes 3 posts per day, 10 hashtags in each.

With this content plan, you can reach 210 hashtags per week. It's best to mix highs, mids, and lows in each post.

And finally, here are the following popular search queries in Yandex (on the topic “hashtags”):

• girls' Instagram hashtags
• top hashtags on Instagram
• Instagram hashtags sea
• fitness hashtags on instagram
• Instagram sports hashtags

We don’t have all these Hashtags in the article. But you are looking for them to promote yourself on Instagram for free. And they won't help you. And the three ways that we wrote about in this article will help.

The world first heard about hashtags back in 2007. Nowadays, a rare significant post on social networks can do without them. Let's figure out what hashtags are, how to put them, what they are for, and how to use them effectively.

What are hashtags

The word “hashtag” comes from the English hash (lattice) and tag (tag). Literally, a hashtag is a word, phrase or phrase marked with a hash symbol. For example, #earn online, #content, #October and so on.

This is what hashtags look like

This promotion tool is used mainly in social networks. Let's look at why they are needed.

How to put a hashtag

It’s very simple: switch to the English layout, put the # sign, and write a word or phrase after it. Once published, the hashtag will become clickable. Remember important rules:

• words in hashtags are not separated by spaces. If you include a space, the hashtag will not be clickable. The space can be replaced with an underscore: for example, #internet_marketing;
• but the hashtags themselves, if there are several of them in a row, are better separated using spaces;
• do not use the symbols +,$,&,% - the hashtag will also be unclickable;
• do not write too long hashtags - or at least separate words with underscores;
• You can write both Russian and English hashtags, depending on what target audience you are writing for.

There are a few more secrets of good hashtags - we’ll tell the most patient readers about them at the end of the article.

What are hashtags for?

Once upon a time, hashtags were used only to find relevant information. Now it is a powerful tool for promoting content on social networks. Here are the main functions of hashtags.

1. Quickly find the information you need. Searching for information using hashtags is very simple: just click on a hashtag and see a lot of posts united by one meaning. The second way: type the desired hashtag in the search bar of any social network. Let's say you wanted to relax and watch memes. We type the hashtag #memes and voila - you have thousands of publications on the topic.

2. Sorting posts. Suitable for those who have a lot of posts and relevant categories. For example, the Texterra agency created special hashtags to highlight different topics of posts. The hashtag of one of these sections is #beyondTexTerra. By walking through it, you can learn a lot about the internal life of the agency.

3. Promoting a personal page or community - increasing views and traffic. If you add popular hashtags to a post, theoretically even those who don’t follow you will see it. But there is one subtlety: overly popular hashtags do not always work.

The secret is simple: too many people use them. Hundreds of posts with similar hashtags appear every minute. The chance that your post will be remembered among them (and even more so that they will visit your page) is not so great.

There is another nuance. People are not stupid and will quickly notice that the popular hashtags of your post have nothing to do with the essence of it. It’s clear, yes: you can cram a dozen topical hashtags into a post, but if you write about how the cat stole your lunch, and use the hashtags #love, #children, #happiness, #autumn2019 and other popular hashtags, get ready for criticism or indifference.

The last time I saw something like this was with the hashtag #third_ofSeptember. It seems like every second Instagram user put these hashtags, and in posts that were completely unrelated to Shufutinsky’s work and music in general.

4. Branding. This is a special type of hashtags - personal, or personal. Any brand or user can come up with them. Maybe several - as you wish.

Here, for example, is a recent post on Instagram by Olga Buzova. There are several hashtags here at once - and mostly they are Olga’s personal ones. They perform two functions: they sort posts on a specific topic (tour 2019, words of gratitude to the team and loved ones) and express the individuality of the star.

We see here several Olga’s personal hashtags

5. Demonstration of humor and creativity. Some viral hashtags are, let's say, on the verge of a foul. Take the same #fabulousbali - a hashtag that was born by chance or mistake (well, it seems to me) from an ordinary Instagram user and instantly spread across all social networks.

The same hashtag

Whoever tagged it - even famous people grabbed the palm and joyfully played with such a tasty news feed. So they apparently wanted to seem modern, with a sense of humor and keeping up with trends.

And some online stores jumped in and released T-shirts with the same hashtag.

What are the hashtags?

Let's look at a few of the most common types.

Popular

These are the most common hashtags used by residents of all countries of the world. #Love, #beauty, #autumn, #work, #travel - all that makes up our daily life.

Viral

Sometimes a trend sweeps the world, and popular hashtags are created for this trend. As I already mentioned, on September 3 (it’s time to introduce a national holiday, by God!) the Runet was filled with hashtags dedicated to the song of the same name. Well-known companies also did not shy away from trends and put the hashtag #3September under their publications.

An example of using viral hashtags

Contextual

These are words relevant to the topic of the post. For example, a person went for a walk, ordered sushi at his favorite restaurant - he puts the hashtags #walk or #sushi. I took a beautiful photo - use the hashtag #photo, #photographer.

Sometimes contextual hashtags are abused - they are placed through every word. Bloggers on Instagram are especially guilty of this. Sometimes it looks funny: I #ate #sushi and am very #happy. #love and #goodness to everyone!

Geographical

Everything is simple here: if a person is in a certain city (lives there, came on a trip or on an excursion), it is quite acceptable to use location hashtags. For example, #Moscow, #St. Petersburg and even the already textbook #fabulous Bali.

Geographic hashtags are also actively used by companies operating in a certain location.

Advertising, professional

If the previous types are used by all users of social networks, then advertising or professional ones are used by those who want to attract a specific target audience, advertise goods or services. For example, an internet marketer puts hashtags related to his work. This is how he attracts new customers and shows his expertise so that he can teach in the future.

This post was seen by the professional community. Well, I hope

Personal or branded

As already mentioned, companies and individual entrepreneurs often create their own hashtags and actively use them. This is where anyone can see the publications of a person or brand and find them in search.

How to put hashtags on different social networks

Twitter

An example of using a hashtag on Twitter

Searching for posts using specific hashtags is easy: just type the desired word into the search bar. Next, select the desired category of tweets: “Popular”, “Latest”, “People”, “Photos”, “Videos”.

Instagram

This is where there is freedom for hashtags of all stripes! On Instagram, a post without hashtags is rare. This is not surprising: many people like to get lost in the evening, looking at beautiful photos of users, united by one theme. You can find posts using a specific hashtag in the search bar at the top of the page.

Please - 1797 262 publications!

The algorithm is simple: if you add hashtags to your post, your post will be shown first in the feed - until someone else posts a post with the same hashtag, and your post will fly down. There are also restrictions here: you can add no more than 30 hashtags to one post. Although this is too much, in my opinion.

Popular hashtags can be selected using special services (I’ll write about them at the end of the article). And also carefully look at what tags other users put on their posts.

In contact with

Searching using hashtags is carried out in the same way: the desired word is entered into the search bar.

We see all user posts starting from the most recent

On VKontakte, hashtags are not used as actively as on Instagram and Twitter. Here it is customary to put them at the end of the post. And don’t abuse the quantity, of course - although there are no specific restrictions on the number of hashtags.

VKontakte has an interesting feature: using hashtags, you can group posts by topic within one community. It looks like this: #reviews@community name. Using these hashtags you can find all reviews on the topic.

Local hashtag example

Posts with hashtags can be searched for: for example, in the news. You can select search options: search only in news or comments, select popular posts that have collected a certain number of likes, and so on. You can also search for local hashtags directly on the community wall.

Facebook

From my observations, hashtags are used infrequently on Facebook. You can also find the desired post by searching - in this respect the algorithm is no different from other social networks. The results can be viewed both in a row and in categories: “Publications”, “People”, “Photos”, “Videos”, “Places”, “Groups” and so on.

Classmates

The principle of searching using hashtags is the same. You can search for posts on a topic in the categories “People”, “Groups”, “Games”, “Music”, “Video”. But there is a nuance: when you start entering a hashtag, the social network itself gives hints (like T9 on a smartphone). A very convenient feature!

YouTube

There is also a limitation here: no more than 15 hashtags per video. Otherwise, everything is the same: videos using hashtags are searched through a search (and the video hosting gives hints), the hashtags themselves are placed in the video description or directly in the title - before the name of the video.

Search videos using the hashtag #business

Pinterest

There are no special rules: hashtags are placed in the post description, there are no restrictions on their number. The rest of the rules for writing hashtags are the same as usual.

Telegram

“Telegram” is especially worth noting, although it is not exactly a social network - rather a messenger with elements of a social network. But that's not the point. Telegram also uses hashtags to attract attention to your post. They are also used in group chats and personal correspondence.

A handy feature: when you enter a hashtag into the search bar, the results show not only posts from other channels and users with this hashtag, but also your personal dialogues in which you used this or that hashtag.

As we already wrote, it’s not enough to add a bunch of popular hashtags to your post. If they do not correspond to the topic of the post, the post is worthless. Don't artificially increase your coverage.

If you really want to touch the great (sarcasm sign here), touch wisely. Lists of popular hashtags are regularly published on the Internet. And again, I implore you, use it wisely: do not add all the hashtags in a row to any posts. Choose the ones that are most relevant to the topic. For example, for photo landscapes with golden leaves, the hashtags #autumn, #autumn2019, #October, #photo and so on are perfect.

Here is a good example of relevant hashtags

I don’t recommend coming up with hashtags yourself: they will only be clear to you and will not bring any coverage (people simply don’t know about these hashtags, so they won’t look for such information). An exception is made only when you come up with personal hashtags for your own convenience: to make it easier to search for your own posts on a topic. I have a personal hashtag on VKontakte #wikimusic, where many posts on the topic are collected. I personally need it: there is no talk of any promotion.

Not every user will bother typing “multi-letters”. It’s like in a search engine: people don’t type the exact meaning of the word or the name of the company. They write as they please. We recently wrote about how to use these trends in an article about voice search.

It's the same with hashtags. Let's say you write about website optimization and realize that you should put the hashtag #SEO. But many Russian-speaking users will simply type CEO - and it doesn’t matter that this concept means something completely different (Chief Executive Officer). Therefore, it is better to include such a hashtag in the list too.

It is believed that the acceptable number of hashtags is no more than 30 percent of the entire post. To bet more is bad manners and something akin to spam. Agree, a “profound” post from one sentence and a whole trail of hashtags behind it look funny. And the queen is naked!

And again, an analogy with search engine promotion: SEOs do not advise moving to the top for high-frequency (read: popular) queries. This is very difficult: too many of your competitors dream of doing the same.

But okay: if you really want to, then you can. Place popular hashtags first, and low- and mid-frequency hashtags later. Leave the most focused ones for last. Perhaps it is through them that your post will be found by exactly those for whom it is intended.

There are special hashtags for getting likes. Seeing them in the feed, other users will like your posts in return for your response. Lists of such tricky hashtags are posted in some databases. Here are some of them: #likes #likes mutually #like nothing like a non-native and so on.

I don’t recommend using this technique all the time, especially if you need hashtags for business. It looks, well, undignified and cheap. But it will be suitable for promoting your posts at first - why not!

Services for selecting hashtags

If you are serious about your content and use hashtags as a promotion tool, we recommend using these services.

1. Hashtags.org is an English-language site, but nothing prevents you from entering a Russian hashtag and looking at the statistics. Shows a list of popular hashtags and at what time certain hashtags are most popular.
2. Нashtagify.me - shows how popular a particular hashtag is.
3. 3. Stapico.ru is a service exclusively for Instagram. Shows how to use hashtags and geotags, there is a search function by name and hashtags.
4. 4. MyTager.com - an application for iPhone owners. Shows a selection of hashtags that most closely match the typed word or post.
5. 5. InstaTag.ru – database of English and Russian hashtags. Divided into sections: the most popular hashtags, Russian cities, emoji emoticons, special hashtags for likes, receiving comments and subscriptions.

Conclusion

I hope the article was useful to you. Write in the comments how you use hashtags - we will share your experience!