Have you been running around Instagram like a chicken with its huead cut off? Likely you’re not getting the right audience, or you’re just struggling getting the right clients for your business. Hi guys, I’m Michael Granados, and I work in affiliate marketing, and I specialize in social media mangement.
Its obvious why you are here today, you want to BLOW UP, in a Houston we have lift off sort of way. Carving out your Instagram hashtags can be daunting if you don’t know what you’re doing and get this, its far worse for those that have been in the game of affiliate marketing or online buinsess for years and are still struggling.
Trust me when I say that its all going to change for you in a matter of minutes. I’ve tested, experiemented with different methods for many niches, and throughout my efforts I’ve fallen and succeeded. I want to share with you all of that, and what will work out the best for your content and reach. So if you’re ready to learn how to build out your hastags for Instagram, lets get it started!
The Instagram Model
One thing you need to know before going to click on your Instagram app is that there is that your competition is likely on Instagram as well. Not shocking news, but it can be if they are repeditevely taking your spotlight. Imagine if you were having to fight over customers, when would anyone of your business get done?
Something my mentors always told me was, look at what your competition is doing. Why re-invent the wheel when all the hard work has already been done for you? HMMM…
They had a point. In my first business in the health service I struggled getting on the front foot. I was up against competitors like Spine-Health, WebMd, Verywellhealth, and so many more I had to gasp for. Its over, shit off my Instagram account right? No!
Instead, why not scout them and see the targeted audience that they are attracting? Here is how you can do that step-by-step:
STEP 1: Go to your search bar
STEP 2: Type in a competitors name. In this case I typed in Spine Health. Make sure you’re under the people tab. Since Spine-Health doesn’t have their own page, I found another competitor. See below.
STEP 3: Select a post, and open up their comments to see their hashtags. Now this part will depend on whether there content pertains to a gernal content post or one more targeted to a product or service. Either way, you can click on the hastags and do further investigation on who these people are.
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So after I look through their hastags, I’ll want to click through a couple. I’ll choose #healthspine for this example.
I want you to shift your eyes to the top right red circle. Notice how there are 54,281 post, and think how this is useful information for a second. Ask yourself:
- Are people talking?
- Are there enough post?
If you can say yes to both, you are going to be well on your way to finding your targeted audience. Other than there being a signifcant amount of post you also have to see who thse people are. By doing this investigation, it will give you an idea of who they are, and what type of services they provide. If these people are writing or producing a similar product as you are and are getting great results, then you’ll be able to steal away their audience.
And you guess it, by hashtags.
This is what I like to call a double jeporady for instagram….rather than just looking at your compeitors hashtags, you’re going one step further to see what your sub competitors are targeting in their own campaigns.
What About Smaller Post?
There will be times in your hashtag sear results that you don’t find many post. for ones that are between 100-300 post, its still worth your time to include in your post because its good for sperating yourself from what everyone else is doing. What I usally do is place 4-5 of these type of hastags into my content.
Just targeting competitive keywodds like for example “affiliate marketing” or “digital marketing” can be really tough to gain an audince from if you’re just starting out. While I always advise staying away from these broad targeted hastags, I want you to still use them.
20-25 Hastag thumb Rule
That’s where the aweosme white space under your caption comes into great use…Instagram favors captions that are shorter, but never mentioned anything about having a smaller hashtag area. If you’re not doing already, you should be using from 20-25 hastags underneath.
With that being said, you’ll have more than enough room to mix both borad and more specific hashtags. Now going back to the short post from earlier, I want you to also target sub words. What I mean by this is that if we used the hastag #affiliate marketing, othjer suggestions can spring up like #affiliatemarketingtips.
If you keep scrolling through down, you’ll find more specific words pertaining to affiliatemarketing, and if you see the post, they do get shorter, but that doesn’t mean you won’t receive your target audience. If many people are utilizng these, you can too, and guess what? You can get teh featured spot on the page.
Like in affiliate marketing, long tail keyowrds are key, so can be in instagram. Like the examples you see from above, you can get smaller post with long tail keywords and still hit it out of the park.
My Tips.
TIP #1:Other than just typing in words you think your target audience is under and finding out your comeptitoes, I highly advise that you sit down and think of some ideas. What I like to do is sit down and think about my audience, for the content or service I like to provide. Like for example:
If I’m writing a blog post about posture and walking, I’m more likely to fill up my hashtags with things like #posture #posture tips #healthyposture….
And I will generally do this at the beggining of my hastags. Go with what the content is about first, and then add the more general hastags like #spinehealth #backpain, etc. Doing it this way will create a better neuriplasticity and recongtiion in your brain. You’ll spring up ideas you didn’t even know there was a hastag for but was. It will go a long way, trust me!
TIP #2: Why not use google trends? There’s no better exposure than being teh first one or one of the begginering tredners to palce out a hastag in your niche. Here’s how to do so for example:
STEP 1: Type in your keyword, hit search. In this example we’re using “inflammation”
The trend looks great, it tells me:
- people are talking
- its needed largely
A Note: Dom’t worry if your trend is going down, you will still get related queries.
STEP 2: Check your related quereis section. As I scroll down I can see what the trending sub topics under inflammation are.
Awesome, now I can see on the right hand side what keyword phrases the majoirty of people are searching for on search engines and what people need help with. I can take all or some of these and make hashtags out of them now.
For example, the word cbd oil for inflammation, what I would do is 1. use #cbd, #inflammation, and 2.get creative and use a word like #cbdforinflammation.
Now, Its likely that the first two hashtags up above will bring up post and search results on Instagram, and are compettive, but thats ok, use them. The thirs one is more long tail specific, and it could have shorter post, and to make sure it exist, I will double check on my search bar on instagram
BINGO! There’s our targeted hastag keyword, with 974 post, far greater than between the 100-300 hastags, so use it. Did you also notice how many other relveant searches it brought up? Look at how many active hashtags are avialble, Yes there are small ones, but there are some heavy hitters too.
You can take away from these hastags and utilize them too. If I wanted to create content for cbdforinjuries I can use that hashtag too, and make it more hashtag specific to the actual meaning of my posted content too.
