Adding hashtags won’t result in more views or increase content distribution, according to the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, during his weekly Ask Me Anything session on March 18th, 2022.
And for final context, this is Adam’s story I referenced here: pic.twitter.com/4S36PsINYd
— allie | social media whisperer (she/her) (@thatalliemason) March 21, 2022
If you’ve been using Instagram professionally over the last few years, you’ve probably heard a lot of different best practices for using hashtag, with experts (and research) over the years suggesting the ”optimal” number of hashtags to use per post was 1-3, 7-15, 20 all the way up to 30 (the maximum you can use on a post).
But in September 2021, a few months after Instagram announced their partnership with Google to index and make Instagram posts searchable on Google, they changed their tune publicly. This time they emphasized relevancy over quantity and encouraged users to stick to 3-5 per post.
And while the internet seems to collectively lose their marbles every time Mosseri and the Instagram team make an announcement about hashtags, here’s why this one is true and what it means for your business.
how to think about hashtags
Hashtags are a tool Instagram uses to categorize your content, but the only way the hashtags will result in more reach or views is if the people engaging with the content signal that it’s high-value.
So, instead of trying to use hashtags like they’re some new hack to get you more views and followers, Instagram’s Creators account suggests you should think about them “as a tool that provides context about your post and supports delivering content to people who are interesting in a particular topic.”
So, the first thing you need to understand is…
How instagram’s algorithm decides which content to suggest to users.
There are 5 signals that Instagram uses to determine if a piece of content is high-value: likes, comments, saves, tapping through to your profile — and most importantly — time spent.
The algorithm then cross-references the information about the post with information about the person who posted, your activity, and your history of interacting with someone to determine how interested you might be in that piece of content.
If your content is sending the right signals to Instagram via engagement and time spent, your content will be suggested to more people through four main traffic sources: explore, top posts on hashtag pages, hashtags people follow, and suggested posts in the home feed.
If your content meets these criteria, it can result in more reach from hashtags. And more specifically, when your post starts performing well in hashtag categories like recent posts or followed hashtags, the algorithm will suggest it to more people and boost it to top posts.
But your content didn’t get improved reach because of the hashtag you used. This is a correlation but not causation. What caused the post to do well in hashtags was the content itself. Including hashtags improved the performance by giving your content more opportunities to be suggested to users via the different recommendation options on the app.
So what should you focus on to improve your Instagram reach?
Spend less time trying to “hack hashtags” and more time creating the best possible content for your followers. Your followers’ responses are the first signals that determine how to distribute your post across the home feed, explore page, suggested posts & hashtags.
Do market research to find out what your audience needs and wants. You can try Answer The Public, reading industry blogs or magazines, or simply ask your existing audience using a question or poll sticker on your Instagram story.
Improve your design chops. When creating graphics, make sure your design is easy to read and doesn’t include too much information. And even though it might be tempting to ask people to like, comment, share, save and tap the link in your bio, you’re more likely to have your audience take action when you only ask them to do one thing at a time.
Invest in your customer experience. If you’re using Instagram to sell a product or service, remember the most important element of your business strategy is creating the best possible product or service for your clients or customers. Implement systems and strategies to give your customers the best possible experience first, then focus on the minutia of optimizing your hashtags.
Remember: word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool businesses have available to them, and it’s free.
“Beyond friends and family, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. And 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions.” - BigCommerce
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Sources:
https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/shedding-more-light-on-how-instagram-works
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/word-of-mouth-marketing/#word-of-mouth-marketing-statistics
https://later.com/blog/how-many-hashtags-on-instagram/
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