Think of a hashtag as a word or phrase you want to use to promote your business. For example if I was selling apples my hashtags might be #applesforsale #bestapples #apples - there are no real hard and fast rules when it comes to making up hashtags but there are a few guidelines to help you get in front of the right customers!
General consensus is that around 11 hashtags is the perfect number. If you aren’t currently using hashtags the best way to find them is by searching for related businesses or products on sites like Instagram (where hashtags are commonplace) and seeing what hashtags they use! Do your research.
Some hashtags may work for you like #doctor but you may then get people searching for things not related to your or your practice like where is the closest #doctor to me? - Not necessarily relevant.
Another great tool to use to identify the right hashtags for your business is:
This great website allows you to search your field and it’ll bring up lots of hashtags for you to choose from.
If you’re using a site like hashtagify or indeed trying to come up with hashtags yourself you need to make sure that those hashtags are actually being searched for. Instagram will hint when you put in a new hashtag how many posts that day have been written with that hashtag, too little and you risk no exposure but too much and you risk getting lost in a sea of other posts.
It’s a balancing act.
On the other hand, sites like hashtagify will actually tell you how good the hashtags are when you look at them, from here you can compile a list of the best ones.
When I look to do a new post on Instagram or Twitter I generally always use the same ‘base’ hashtags, to ensure my core customers are getting hit and then add a few extras to the end that are content specific for that post.
Save your core hashtags and make sure you can copy and paste them in every time - people don’t usually just search for things once they’ll go back to them again and again
