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A Guide to Instagram Hashtags in 2022

Hashtags can skyrocket your business to new heights, but if used too frequently or without a clear strategy in mind, they become pointless and inefficient.

While it can be hard to choose the right hashtags on Instagram, you don’t have to guess. Aside from this article, we’ve put together an ultimate course on using Instagram for marketing. In this course, we’ll teach you to not just attract followers, but to attract the right followers.

Hashtags are essentially Instagram’s sorting process. With around 95 million photos posted on Instagram every day, it’s difficult for Instagram to efficiently deliver the right content to the right people. Hashtags help your post get discovered by viewers most interested in seeing it.

How Brands Are Using Hashtags in 2022

A famous HubSpot survey included over 1,000 marketing professionals to understand how they were incorporating hashtags into their Instagram strategy in 2022. Here’s what we found:

• 82% of marketers leverage hashtags as part of their Instagram strategy.
• 85% of marketers have a documented hashtag strategy for Instagram.
• 81% of marketers say using hashtags has been somewhat or very effective for their Instagram strategy.
• 62% of marketers use between four to nine hashtags in an Instagram feed post.
• 53% of marketers say most of the brands they market leverage branded hashtags.
• 37% of marketers say using popular hashtags has been most effective when posting on Instagram.
• 66% of marketers use Instagram’s hashtag suggestions to determine which hashtags to use. 58% of marketers look to competitors or accounts that post similar content to find which hashtags to use.
• According to marketers, the most popular places to use hashtags on Instagram include in the caption of feed posts (35%), on Instagram stories (39%), in the caption of Instagram live videos (38%), and in the caption and comment section of Instagram Reels videos (33%).
• 46% of marketers say the most effective hashtag strategy is to place some hashtags in the caption and some in the comments of a post.

Whether you’re a social media manager at a company, an owner of a small business, or a sole proprietor, you can use the following hashtags to get more visibility on Instagram.

• • Product or service hashtags. Companies use product hashtags for posts related to their product and service offerings. This will usually be general, such as #hairsalon or #knitwear.
  • Industry niche hashtags. These hashtags are used to indicate the specific work you do and are narrower than your product or service hashtags. Examples include #blackhairsalon or #handmadeknits.
  • Branded hashtags. Branded hashtags help you build a community specifically around your brand or business. This can be a slogan. It can also be the name of a specific product that you offer or even your business name.
  • Campaign hashtags. If you’re running a sponsored ad, you can use a unique hashtag to keep track of activity relating to the campaign.
  • User-generated content hashtags. This type of hashtag is created specifically for your customers. These are different from product, branded, and campaign hashtags because you, the company, can’t influence what gets posted. Other people can visit this hashtag to see unfiltered and unsponsored photos of your product.
  • Instagram community hashtags for your industry. These hashtags are great for getting more visibility among other Instagrammers who do what you do. For example, if you were a knitter, you might post in #knittersofinstagram.

Do you use Instagram for personal use? Take a look at the hashtags that are available to you.

• Personal hashtags. You use these hashtags specifically in posts related to you. Think #me, #selfie, #lovemyself, #vacation, and #lovemylife.
• Daily hashtags. Daily hashtags usually have a theme, such as #workoutwednesday, #throwbackthursday, and #motivationmonday.
• Acronym hashtags. Think #ootd (outfit of the day), #potd (photo of the day), and #tbt.
• Holiday hashtags. Use these hashtags for specific holidays such as #DiaDeLosMuertos or #IndependenceDay to share how you’re spending time during these days.

Like companies, you can also use phrase, cultural movement, event, and location hashtags.