Your company is just getting started, and you want more likes, comments, and even new followers on your social media pages, particularly on Instagram.

It’s time to start using hashtags, a completely free and necessary tool for social media communication, regardless of your company’s profile or the sort of content you promote.

What exactly are hashtags?

Hashtags are keywords or groupings of words that are preceded by the “#” symbol and are used to label the type of content. The principle for hashtags is simple: if you add a specific hashtag (for example, #resist) to a post, you may gather all public posts that contain that hashtag with a single click on that hashtag. In other words, hashtags group together all public posts that include certain keywords, without the need to create a special page.

Why are hashtags used?

If you use the proper hashtags in your social media posts, you will find that you will get more interactions and reach more people over time.

Your posts will appear in the following categories thanks to hashtags::

• Other people’s feed (if those people follow a certain hashtag)
• The hashtag collection (when you click on a hashtag, it takes you to all searches on those hashtags)
• Search Page (Explore Page) –  You have a higher chance of being spotted.

How to use hashtags?

1. Make use of all 30 hashtags available.
2. Use both Romanian and English hashtags.
3. Use a variety of hashtags, including tiny (100,000 posts), medium (100,000 – 500,000 posts), and large (& 500,000 posts) and mix them up
4. Use hashtags with emoji (for example, #resist).
5. Add hashtags when you post, not after.
6.  Add the hashtags after the description of the post, or even in a comment on that post
7. Make a hashtag for your community (for instance, #comunitateainobox).
8. Use popular hashtags in your field or used by your followers.
9. Avoid using hashtags that have been used millions of times (for example, #nature has 645,000,000 posts).
10. Create your own hashtag for your company.
11. If you’re unsure about which hashtags to use, go to another similar business in your sector for inspiration (do a little research first)
12. Use hashtags in stories as well as feed posts.
13. Do not use forbidden hashtags (examples: #nudity, #pornfood, #tag4like, etc. – a comprehensive list of banned hashtags for 2021 may be found here: https://blog.kicksta.co/a-complete-list-of-banned-hashtags-you-should-avoid/).
14. Adapt the hashtags to the content you upload, as well as your brand and niche (for example, if you work in fashion, do not use hashtags from other sectors such as #food and others).
15. Download and use hashtag-creation apps (for example, Leetags – Hashtag Generator, Auto Hash, Smarthash, All-Hashtags).

How to organize your hashtags?

Brand #s: your own hashtags including the name of the brand or the name of your business and/or the slogan (if applicable to your business, you may even create hashtags derived from the name of the business – for example, #brand_Timisoara).

Content #s: Hashtags related to the image and/or content you post.

Category #s: Hashtags that are relevant to the category they belong to.

Niche #s: Hashtags that are relevant to the audience you want to reach.