What are Instagram Hashtags and how to use them?
Hashtags are crucial for increasing your Instagram audience reach by facilitating a better user experience and engagement with your content.
In this article, we will explore what hashtags are, the different types of hashtags and how to use them effectively for your advantage.
Let's start by defining a hashtag first.
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How many hashtags should you use while posting on Instagram?
A regular Instagram post can have up to 30 hashtags, and a story can have up to 10 hashtags. Your comment or caption won't post if you try to add more.
However, just because Instagram allows for so many hashtags doesn't mean you should. There is no ideal quantity of hashtags for any one business or even for each post made by the same company.
For professionals, 5 to 11 hashtags are a good number for content aimed at higher views. But for content in general, anywhere between 1 and 3 hashtags are most popular and widely used on Instagram.
You'll need to conduct some A/B testing to find out what works best for your specific case.
How do I know if a hashtag I created on Instagram is working or not?
Creating hashtags is easy, and although they work most of the time, in some cases, they may not work due to some error.
The best way to check if a hashtag you have created is working or not is by clicking on those hashtags.
Once you have created a hashtag and published the Instagram post, the hashtags will appear as a blue text representing a link. Clicking on those hashtags will open up another page on Instagram, which will display the total number of posts created using those hashtags.
Hashtags that are not working will not appear as blue text. Neither will they bear any hyperlink connecting them to the actual hashtag page on Instagram.
If you want to know about the hashtag's performance on Instagram, you can check the same by using Instagram Insights.
Instagram Insights can help you understand all hashtags you have created and how much traffic they bring to your Instagram post.
However, remember that you should have a business account on Instagram to access Instagram Insights features.
How to hide hashtags on Instagram?
Most professionals, business people, and even Insta savvy people, in general, spend a lot of time creating quality content. You may even spend time creating a great Instagram caption for your post.
Since a lot of time is spent creating these posts, creators often add multiple hashtags - sometimes a little too much, to make their posts stand out among similar content.
But what if your content is grouped with other seemingly good but useless groups of hashtags, or your hashtags are spoiling the user experience?
Would you want to hinder the user experience with the sheer abundance of hashtags when a user is checking out your post?
Fortunately, there is a way out. You may use a few simple methods to hide the concerned hashtags, thereby improving your post.
Hide hashtags in a comment-
If you have not posted the content, create content first, but please do not use hashtags in your caption. Instead, write your captions as usual and post hashtags in the comments.
If the post is already published, go to the post and click/tap on the dialogue symbol next to your post to submit a new hashtag or edit the comment containing the hashtag which has been published.
Type or paste the new hashtags you want to use in the comment box, then click post.
Your hashtags won't be displayed if a user chooses to view all comments when using a mobile device. This approach works fine if you're targeting a mobile audience who would use the Instagram App.
Your comment will remain at the top when viewing the web version from your desktop computer.
Hide hashtags among captions on Instagram-
Hashtags can be used within the caption itself without being too obvious.
A remarkable feature of Instagram is that it conceals captions after three lines, so unless your followers tap... more, they won't be able to see your hashtags.
Here is how to hide hashtags from the caption of your Instagram post-
- Prepare your post and write your caption.
- Put 3 to 5 dots after the caption.
- After each dot, press Enter/Return button.
- Add your hashtags here.
- Publish your post as usual.
The list of hashtags will appear at the bottom of your caption when someone clicks to expand it and read the content, not in the middle of what you were trying to say.
Even then, they will be visually separated from your caption to prevent them from diverting their attention from your content.
Hide hashtags among Instagram Stories-
You may add your favorite #hashtags to an Instagram story in a few different ways. Similarly, there are multiple ways to hide your hashtags on Instagram Stories, so no one will ever learn about your hidden hashtags or even that you use them!
One way is to squeeze and reduce the size of your hashtags to make them appear relatively small. This way the user will not notice the hashtag, unless looking carefully.
Our pick is to use the 'pen method.'
- Add the photo or video - Choose any image (or video) you want to post to your Instagram story by taking one or choosing from your phone's Gallery.
- Enter a #Hashtag - Enter any hashtag you like to use. As soon as you begin typing with a #, a list of hashtags will appear for you to select from.
- Create an invisible hashtag - Tap the 'pen' once you've finished writing your hashtag and match the font color with the image's background color.
When the hashtag and background are of the same color, drag the pen across the screen to write the text matching the background color.
Once published, hashtags will be invisible to everyone while still working.
Lastly you can use the hashtag sticker, wherein the background can be changed from white to semi-transparent by tapping it. Also, you can put an emoji, sticker, or GIF on top of your hashtags to hide them completely.