How to Choose the Best Hashtags!

Get Seen & Grow Your Following!

 #HashtagLove

Love ‘em or hate ‘em hashtags are an important part of any social media growth strategy. In fact, Later.com found that Instagram posts with at least one hashtag get an average of 12.6% more engagement overall than posts without a hashtag. 

But WTF Are Hashtags?

Before we dive into the Hows, Whens, and Whats of choosing the best hashtags for Instagram, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page... 

Hashtags are different topics, themes, trends, and phrases that can be attributed to any given post so that anyone on Instagram searching for that particular hashtag has a better chance of seeing your post on that topic. 

For example, if you take a photo of a pixie cut you just completed and post it to Instagram with the hashtag #PixieCut, anyone looking on Instagram for pixie cut inspiration can narrow their search to only posts with the #PixieCut hashtag and stand a better chance of seeing your post, liking it, saving it, sharing it etc…

Hashtag Basics

To help get you started, it’s important to know some of the rules around using hashtags across different platforms as some of them limit the number of hashtags you use in any given post. 

• Instagram - 30 hashtags per post
• TikTok - Up to 33 or until you reach the 100 character count limit
• Facebook - No limit though you should use them sparingly
• Twitter - Unlimited up to the 280 character count limit

How to Choose the Best Hashtags 

With millions of hashtags already available and the ability to make up any new hashtag you like, it can feel pretty overwhelming to try to narrow them down to the ones you should use. 

However, as a salon owner-operator, you’re at an advantage because you can narrow your focus to industry-related themes, topics, and trends. #Win

To Get Started:  

1. Look to see what hashtags your favorite stylists are using and, if they apply to you and your business, write them down.
2. Look to see what hashtags your target customers are using so that you can give them the kind of content they’re interested in AND improve your chances of them seeing it.
3. Google phrases like “top hashtags for stylists” or “top beauty industry hashtags” and do this regularly. Hashtags that performed well last year may not be relevant now.
4. Write down any hashtags that YOU like or think are relevant that aren’t already on your list. Remember building a solid following means infusing yourself and your personality into your posts. 

Next Steps: 

1. Take a look at your list of hashtags and search each one individually on Instagram and only keep hashtags that have been used between 10k and 500k times. This range is important because: 
1. Using hashtags that are too popular can result in your post getting buried in the feed within seconds of being posted.
2. Using hashtags that aren’t popular enough means nobody is really searching for them and your post won’t be seen.
2. Take the hashtags that are left and spend some time looking at the posts in each hashtag’s feed and ask yourself the following:
1. Are these the types of posts I’d like to be associated with? 
2. Are they up to my quality standard? 
3. Is the feed mostly spam or irrelevant content? 

*If a hashtag doesn’t meet these standards, don’t feel bad crossing it off your list. 

1. Now take your list of remaining hashtags and categorize them each into one of the following buckets: 
1. Products - ex: #HairMask #HairSerum 
2. Services - ex: #ClassicCut #HairColor
3. Niche/Industry-Specific - #HairStyleOfTheDay #NailInspo
4. Holiday/Seasonal - ex: #SummerCut #WinterLashes
5. Location - ex: #SolaNewYork #MySalonSuitesLA

How To Use Your New Hashtags

Using new hashtags is like any other part of your marketing strategy. There’s no way to know if and how they’ll work without just trying stuff out. So to get started, here are a few helpful, rough guidelines to keep things simple: 

• Choose 10-15 general hashtags to start with to see how they perform.
• Post those 10-15 general hashtags as the first comment on every post.
• Use 2-3 post-specific hashtags that aren’t in your set of 10-15 in the post’s caption.
• Use the hashtag categories list you came up with in Step 3 of “Next Steps” to help you choose what types of hashtags to use in each post’s caption.
• Make them ACCESSIBLE. Make sure to #CapitalizeEachNewWord in your hashtags so that visually impaired users using text-reader functions can understand your hashtags.

Simple Hashtag Checklist   

To really help you simplify the process, use this checklist to narrow your search…

• Is it industry-specific?
• Is it between 10k and 500k in usage?
• Are other posts associated with that hashtag relevant to what I’m posting?
• Are other posts associated with that hashtag of high quality?
• Is it current/trending/timely (nothing older than the current year - ex: Balayage2020)?

Final Thoughts

Using hashtags can be a fun and simple way to boost your engagement, keep you up to date on trending topics, and showcase your unique brand - and when used in combination with finding the best times to post, the potential for growth is unlimited. 

Happy #Hashtagging!