Pam Hughes November 27, 2021 How many hashtags should you use on Instagram to maximize engagement?
Previous studies have shown less is more. However, Instagram says you should add 3 to 5 relevant hashtags to reach your target audience.
What to do?
As with everything social media, much depends on your focus and audience. The Instagram marketing platform Later recently analyzed more than 18 million Instagram feed posts (not including videos or stories) to determine the best hashtag usage to drive engagement and reach.
Their main finding? On both fronts, more Instagram hashtags are indeed better.
Posts with 20 hashtags have the highest average reach rate.
Posts with 30 hashtags are not far behind.
30 Instagram hashtags generate the best engagement.
Later also discovered that 30 hashtags produced the best results in terms of engagement — driving more likes and comments.
Using more hashtags makes sense for maximizing discoverability and getting your posts into more Explore channels and listings. However, this approach can make your posts appear more cluttered — although this doesn’t seem to be a significant concern for users.
What should you choose?
You’ll need to experiment to find what works for your needs.
It might be worth testing and looking at your own results. On the other hand, if you have been successful with fewer Instagram hashtags, you may not need to make any changes.
Read Later’s complete Instagram hashtag study here.
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