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NOW ONI know that there's like a group of people who are quite anti-hashtag, and I get it. Like, hashtags have let you down, I feel you. Hashtags let me down in the past, like, I totally get it. However, on occasion, they have actually really pulled through for me. For example, this time, also that time, and this time when I reached 36,000 people purely through hashtags. Like, mind blown. So, hopefully, I've done a bit of convincing to anyone who hates hashtags. At the start of the video, stick with me. I'm going to teach you how you can use them to really help you know grow and leverage your account.
Before we do that, though, I do have a surprise for you because there's so many new people on this account. Last month, I had like 700 subs, and now I've got like 4,000. Crazy! And I decided to do a giveaway. Some of you may know that I provide Instagram audits to people. You can purchase one on my website. I'll put the link in my description. And basically, what they are is their documents which comb through every element of your Instagram page. It gives you scores, and then I also give you advice on how you can improve each element of your Instagram page moving forward. I've decided I'm going to give away one of these for free to one of you guys every single month until the rest of the year. So, this guys, is a continuous giveaway. I'm gonna put in a round of applause here just to really, really gas me up. And yeah. So, it doesn't matter what point of 2021 you're watching this video. You can enter this giveaway, and this is how you enter.
So, hashtags allow Instagram to categorize your content and also makes your content searchable. One of the biggest flaws of Instagram, in my humble opinion, is that it could sometimes be quite a closed platform. And by that, I just basically mean sometimes it's hard for you to reach accounts who aren't following you. It's not like YouTube where their algorithm is, you know, backed by a search engine. It's a lot more closed and kind of harder to get your account pushed out there. So, one way for you to do this is via hashtags. They provide a constant source of reach for your content.
The first step is in identifying the right hashtag for you. So, what I'm going to need you to do, um, is to get a pen and paper. You could do it with me now, you can watch this later, I don't mind. Um, get a pen, a paper, get your laptop, get an Excel sheet—however you want to do it, get your notes up on your iPhone, Android, whatever—and I need you to brainstorm 20 hashtags within the following buckets, shall we call them? Um, before you say over 20 hashtags, does that mean I should only be using 20 hashtags? Bear with me, all will be revealed later in this video.
So, you're going to go into Instagram's app, you're going to search for these hashtags, and if they are banned, you will see this message appear. And if that message does appear, I'm going to need you to just cross that one out of your list because it's not correct, and we're not going to use it. The other thing I want you to be checking for: so, say you've searched your hashtag, it's not banned, check. Now, I want you to look at the top content in this hashtag. So again, we're not looking at the most recent category, we're looking at the top. And I want you to look at this content and think, okay, does this actually align with any of the content that I do? Like, for example, if you've looked up a hashtag and you've seen loads of posts which are all quotes and graphics, do you post quotes or graphics? And if you don't, then that hashtag is not correct for you. You know? So think about things like that. Because at the end of the day, if you really like a hashtag, it does relate to you, but you don't create content which is similar to the top posts on there, you're not going to get on the top posts, you know? We want to find some attainable hashtags here.
Step three, this is your final step of identifying the best hashtags for you. Once we get past this step, I'm going to give you some do's and don'ts and then—done, you finished, you completed the module. You can move on and use your hashtags and watch your account grow. So, step three is all about testing and learning. So, yeah, you've got all your 60 hashtags, you've vetted them, and you're like, great, finished. No, no. I'm going to need you to test and learn these hashtags. And how you do that, I'll put a little virtual phone here so you can have a look at me going on some of my posts and looking at my insights to see how my hashtags are doing. I'm gonna flex on you here, and I'm gonna purposely go on a post what's done really well for me on hashtags just because—because I need a boost today, so that's what I'm gonna do.
Alright, so we're nearly done. Thank you so much for bearing with me. I appreciate it, and let's talk about some do's and don'ts. So, I'm gonna start with the don'ts first so that we could end on a nice positive note. So, okay, so don'ts. Don't use the same hashtags in the same order on every post. The reason why I asked you to come up with 60 hashtags in total was so that you can avoid falling into this trap and you can have a nice bank of hashtags to use and rotate on all of your posts, right? And the reason why this is a bad thing you've probably heard it before is because Instagram is super smart, and they're always on the lookout for bot-like activity. And unfortunately, using the same hashtags in the same order in every post is considered bot-like activity.
Q: What is the importance of using hashtags on Instagram?
A: Hashtags allow Instagram to categorize your content and make it searchable. They also provide a constant source of reach for your content.
Q: How can I find effective hashtags?
A: You can identify the right hashtags by brainstorming 20 relevant hashtags and then vetting them by checking if they are banned on Instagram and if they align with the content you create.
Q: What is the three-step process to finding effective hashtags?
A: The three steps are identifying relevant hashtags, vetting them by checking if they are banned and align with your content, and testing and learning how they perform on your posts.
Q: What are the dos and don'ts of using hashtags?
A: Some dos include testing and learning with hashtags and avoiding using the same hashtags in the same order on every post. Don'ts include engaging in bot-like activity by using repetitive hashtags.
Q: What is the power of hashtags?
A: Hashtags can help increase your reach on Instagram and can be leveraged to grow and optimize your account.
Q: Is there a giveaway announcement?
A: Yes, there is a continuous giveaway where one lucky person will receive a free Instagram audit every month until the rest of the year.