The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtag Marketing Strategy in 2024

In the social media dynamic, where everything updates more quickly than “double-tap,” one thing always remains constant. Did you get it? Hashtags are considered the backbone of any social media marketing strategy including Instagram.

Small words and phrases can supercharge your content and make it more quickly visible to the target audience.

This, in turn, helps in achieving results.

This blog post will guide you in making your Instagram hashtag strategy without spending a penny in 2024. Let’s get straight into the topic to learn more.

Understanding Instagram Hashtags in 2024

Why do hashtags hold so much importance? This question always pops up in my mind.

Hashtags are a way to label and categorize content so Instagram can show it to the relevant audience.

These are words or phrases with the # symbol appearing in the Instagram caption. The symbol categorizes the content to be found easily on the app. The simple function of hashtags is to fuel the search on the Instagram Explore page.

Here is what the Instagram caption with hashtag looks like:

Source: Instagram post with hashtags

Anatomy of Right Hashtags

A few different types of hashtags can help your content stand out. Whether you’re a service provider, a small business owner, or a blogger, read hashtags’ anatomy to understand the right hashtags.

Here are a few types of hashtags that are commonly used on Instagram:

1. Brand or Product Hashtag

These are the hashtags you create with your product name in them. Most of the time, product or brand hashtags are used to create brand awareness.

After consistent posting, the brand hashtags can help your target audience reach you more easily.

2. Campaign hashtags

Businesses have different campaigns running for different purposes. You can add one or two hashtags relevant to a recent campaign in the post.

3. Location hashtags

These hashtags are self-explanatory. If you’re a small business or have a physical store, you can use the hashtag of your store location.

Hashtags of location perform well for service-based businesses. For example, if you’re targeting clients in a particular location, the location hashtag will be very effective in getting targeted clients.

4. Themed hashtags

Using relevant social media hashtags is a fun way to follow trends and engage with the audience. For example, using #newyear #2024 #christmas and several other tags.

5. Community and industry hashtags

Hashtags relevant to the industry are among the best ways to attract a generic audience. To find the industry-relevant hashtags, head out to the most popular content creator in the industry and observe their hashtags.

6. Trending hashtags

These hashtags are the most difficult to use since they require A LOT of creativity to fit them with your content. However, using them in your post will bring hundreds of extra views or may make your content viral.

However, this is a short-lived strategy. You need to jump on the trend first to reap maximum benefits.

Instagram Hashtag Marketing Strategy in 2024

Source: Hashtag marketing

An Instagram hashtag strategy is a calculated plan of using hashtags on Instagram.

Hashtags on Instagram categorize and organize your photos. They also help Instagram to serve your posts to the most relevant users. The hashtags you use are one of the most effective ways to ensure your high-quality Instagram content (such as carousels, Reels, videos, and static images) gets prioritized in the search results and on the Instagram Explore page.

Creating a hashtag strategy will help you get your posts in front of new, high-value users on Instagram. Plus, by developing branded hashtags, you can easily review and repurpose user-generated content or even run UGC campaigns.

There are endless hashtag opportunities on Instagram that make them a MUST in social media strategy.

Here is a breakdown of how to make an Instagram hashtag marketing strategy in 2024:

1. Research your audience

First things first, understanding your audience holds prime importance in building an effective Instagram hashtag strategy. So, understand who is your target audience and find out what they want.

This way, you can use hashtags that your target audience mostly searches on Gram.

But how can you really do that?

Dive deep into the app and explore people in your industry and niche. Review their hashtags to understand what your audience cares about.

Utilize that information to define your hashtags.

2. Find popular hashtags relevant to your brand

Next, find some popular and relevant hashtags in your industry, niche, and brand.

Deeply evaluate the hashtags that influencers and competitors in your niche use.

When someone searches for a hashtag or key term related to your post or your business, your posts will appear in their research results on Instagram. It’s an excellent approach to ensure the right people see your posts.

You can also check the popularity of each hashtag by searching it in Instagram’s search bar and see how many posts with particular hashtags exist.

3. Research hashtags before using them

DON’T BLINDLY ADD HASHTAGS.

Do some research on hashtags before using them. Review other creator’s posts to see who else is using similar hashtags.

Reviewing the posts associated with that hashtag ensures you use the most relevant hashtags for your brand or content.

You can also check out the popular hashtags that work best for different content types.

4. Use a combination of popular and smaller niche hashtags

This is one of the tips to get the attention of a broad audience. Don’t just use popular hashtags. Instead, use a mix of both popular and niche-specific hashtags.

Popular hashtags can help you get due attention, but that wouldn’t be long-lasting. Niche-specific hashtags can help you rank.

So, use a mix of hashtags to boost your reach while targeting the right audience. You can also check out the viral hashtags that work best for different content types.

5. Use seasonal and holiday hashtags

The time-sensitive content can boost visibility. To stay updated, including seasonal and holiday hashtags is a MUST.

Add hashtags related to seasons, months, holidays, and events to keep your posts fresh.

You can check out Google Calendar to search for specific holidays and events and use them in your Instagram posts.

6. Use the right number of hashtags

Source: Hashtag numbers

Using the right number of hashtags is also very crucial. Instagram gives you a window of 30 hashtags per post.

However, doesn’t a post with A LOT of hashtags look spammy?

It’s better to use 2-3 specific hashtags to attract a target audience that will be your asset in the long run.

7. Monitoring and measuring hashtag success

So, you’ve made a hashtag strategy for your Instagram business and are ready to start. What’s next? How are you gonna analyze the success of hashtags?

Tracking hashtags’ performance is important to monitor which hashtags work for you.

You may notice more engagement, virality, or spam messages using one or two hashtags. To make sure you’re using the right hashtags, use Instagram hashtag analytics. You can measure the performance of your hashtag campaign by looking at how much interaction it receives, tracking engagement rates, and then adjusting your strategy.

Select the hashtags that performed well for you and use them again.

After hit and trial, you’ll eventually develop a winning technique in which you publish hashtags that get the greatest interaction for your brand profile.

Create Customized Hashtags with ChatFAI

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Add relevant information in Bio. Add “Instagram specialist” to your Bio to get ultra-specific results.

The tool will help you find as many hashtags as possible, which will be a starting point for creating a winning Instagram hashtag marketing strategy for 2024.

Conclusion

Instagram is one of the top social media platforms with multiple perks and benefits. The blog post elaborated on the Instagram hashtag marketing strategy to stand out in 2024.

Right hashtags can be your gateway to building an authentic audience and unlocking various opportunities.

Check out these strategies and keenly observe what works for you.

FAQs

Q: What is a hashtag marketing strategy?

A hashtag marketing strategy is thoroughly researching hashtags and using them to build an audience or generate leads. The hashtag marketing strategy varies depending on the goals.

Hashtag strategies for different social media platforms also vary.

Q: What is the best hashtag strategy?

The best hashtag marketing strategy is one that aligns with business goals and uses hashtags purposefully.

Q: What is the 3×3 hashtag strategy?

The 3×3 hashtag strategy is one of the top strategies that bring massive results for Instagram. It is to use 3 hashtags about the problem, 3 about the solution, and 3 hashtags about the target audience.