Whitewed Advise: Effective use of Hashtags on Instagram

Here at Whitewed, I work with engaged couples, wedding venues and suppliers alike, and 13 years in the industry and many thousands of contacts means I have a true and realistic view into how both sides of the industry react, perform, cope, and what their processes, challenges and wins are.

Instagram is a fabulous platform to get your business noticed by your target audience and the use of hashtags really varies; some of you have absolutely nailed it and some people don't use any - so why should you use hashtags and what value do they add...?

Instagram hashtags are an effective way to get more eyes and engagement on your posts; and when you get your hashtags right they allow you to grow your reach, get more engagement and attract more followers.  Neglecting hashtags will make your posts more difficult for potential followers to spot you from the crowd because adding hashtags to your posts will make them, and therefore you, more visible.

When considering what hashtags to use, imagine what the people looking for you are likely to search for.  Firstly, make sure you hashtag your company name, tagline and the products and services you offer, the area you are in or the areas you are happy to cover.

Try not to be too broad, for example #makeupartist will get lost amongst many other posts, I sometimes see posts where the location is tagged separate to the service, for example #wiltshire #makeupartist #MUA #wedding, this just means that your post may appear if someone was searching the individual hashtags, but that might not get you seen by someone looking for a Wiltshire based wedding Makeup Artist in the area you cover, so perhaps narrow down to #makeupartistwiltshire or #cotswoldmakeupartist; it’s better to find and use hashtags that are smaller, more niche and have an engaged audience that’s relevant to your industry and the area you are in. 

If you usually post from your mobile phone then it’s worthwhile keeping a list of your hashtags in the notes for you to copy and paste to make things a bit quicker.  At Whitewed we use Creator Studio to schedule our posts, and because we're posting about lots of different types of wedding suppliers, we organise our hashtags into an Excel spreadsheet so we have a list of relevant hashtags to hand, which we continually add to and update.

Study your competitors and top influencers to find the best hashtags. Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your brand and what you're posting. Don’t be tempted to use the same hashtags all the time – make it relevant to the content that you’re posting about.

Finally, make sure you regularly review your Instagram Insights to see what works and what gets you the most engagement.  

Kindest, 

Natalie Lovett, Director of The Whitewed Directory