Hashtags. From forming niches to expanding audiences, these neat little textual extracts run social media empires. But how do you come up with the best trending hashtags? This deceivingly simple question hides a tacit truth – most people do them randomly and by doing that miss a big opportunity. If you feel that you might fit the category, read on for some quick enlightenment.
Did you know that hashtags are used to classify and categorize content according to relevant criteria? Most likely yes, of course. However, did you know that clever use of hashtags places your content above that of others in searches and ‘recommended’ pages?
Consider hashtags your shortcuts to a bigger audience and quicker growth. Hitting the right hashtags puts you in the spotlight for many niche social media users, and that’s cool. This might seem as if missing on hashtags has no cons apart from losing that extra followers, though, and that’s as far away from truth as it gets.
Tapping the wrong hashtags not only doesn’t earn you more followers, but it also buries your content deep below the content of those who optimally use hashtags. In other words, random hashtags can make your posts reach fewer users than posts without hashtags.
So, yup, much more to the hashtags choice than you might have thought. What can you do to fix your hashtag practice? Read on!
First Stops for Twitter and Instagram
Twitter Trends
Twitter Trends should be the first place you visit when you want to know the top-performing trends for any given day in any given state. Whether it’s personalized recommendation or location-specific hashtags, you’ll be able to find it out here. The data here is useful whether you’re devising your hashtag strategy yourself or if you rely on dedicated software. Make sure you visit at least once in a while!
Instagram Explore
If you’re an IG user, you most likely already spend quite a while on Instagram Explore. Have you tried utilizing it for hashtags, though? This dedicated page that’s formed from your interests and stuff you watched before can be a great help with hashtags in your preferred niches. Take a good, introspective look at what hashtags get rolled around for inspiration in your own campaigns.
Detailed Hashtag Generation Tips
Location-Specific Hashtags
It goes without saying that some of the globally trending hashtags might not perform as well locally. If you’re aiming for a local audience, you need to deliver fine-tuned content with location-specific hashtags.
How do you do that? Simply enough; there are loads of free and paid software options that can give you insights into locally trending hashtags. For example, let’s take Task Ant. Via a simple and elegant interface they draw out maps of local trends, so you can find what you need in a matter of minutes. And it’s fun!
Follow the User-Oriented Hashtag Chain
To better understand hashtags, you should explore what hashtags get clustered together. This way you’ll get an idea of what goes with what hashtags, as well as an influx of ideas about niche and the popular-to-narrow hashtag ratio.
Quick tip: you’ll notice that most popular posts have a balanced ratio of popular and niche hashtags, and that’s the most optimized way to do hashtags. While massively popular hashtags put you out among large audiences and large competition, niche-specific ones anchor you in more receptive followings and secure your position above your competitors.
Niche Insights
Speaking of niches, these can be powerful growth accelerators, but they require delicate attention to be handled effectively. The best way to approach them is to perform a detailed analysis and careful extraction of hashtag ideas prior to posting. Check the top-performing hashtags in those ‘small’ circles and see whether they fit your content. The time invested gets multiplied by several magnitudes, so don’t be afraid to dig deep!
…or Just Use a Dedicated Hashtag Generator
It is just as valid an option as any to save the investment of time and effort and obtain the services of a dedicated hashtag generator. A proper hashtag generator tool needs to take great care to respect all that we mentioned above and more.