[4800+ Words] The Complete 2018 Instagram Hashtags Guide

mladz said:
All the people that have their accounts gaining 1k plus a day through powerlikes don't use hashtags.

Hashtags don't get you to the explore page. Explore equal gains. Hashtags equals 10 followers a day.

Have fun with that.
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Nowhere in this guide do I suggest hashtag gains are better than explore gains.

I agree with you that the explore page is where serious gains are made, but a lot of people (think 99% of people who want to grow their Instagram account) can't produce 1k+ organic explore gains with truly viral content; however, they oftentimes can do extremely well gaining real, targeted followers through hashtags.

I state right away:

IGKing said:
This isn't the most "groundbreaking" read
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Nor do I suggest that this will radically improve your Instagram account, but https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/4800-words-the-complete-2018-instagram-hashtags-guide.997698/#post-10687696.

mladz said:
'now you should’ve grasped the concept that hashtags are a key component to organic exposure on Instagram'

This couldn't be further from the truth and a complete lie.
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It's actually true. They are a key component, along with the explore tab, but this "essay" isn't about the explore tab, is it?

mladz said:
All the people that have their accounts gaining 1k plus a day through powerlikes don't use hashtags.
Click to expand...

Even this isn't true, plenty of top-tier, high-gaining accounts use hashtags. Sure, they might not "bank" off hashtags, but they use them, nonetheless.

Thanks for your feedback as always, @mladz :) It's always a pleasure.
 
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'now you should’ve grasped the concept that hashtags are a key component to organic exposure on Instagram

It's actually true. They are a key component, along with the explore tab, but this "essay" isn't about the explore tab, is it?'

It's not true... which you confirmed with your 2018 top posts algorithm explaination. Where this algorithm makes your top posts tailored to your own habits.

With this in mind, all eyes that search that tag with be seeing different top posts.. so when are they going to see your awesome post? 9 slots available.. 5 taken up by massive accounts .. i don't like your chances.

Bring on the 10 followers a day.
 
This is a great post, It will help newbies a lot. I work with iG for two years now so I am familiar with everything you wrote, and there are a lot of strategies that will help people even more, like boosting with followers/likes purchased at different panels (I recommend TOP4SMM) , also CONTENT is king, I am sick of reposting. I created a page in my country, used niche and sub-niche hashtags and photographers are sending me photos, which is great, I also take photos now... The best but also the hardest thing is creating a relationship with your page fans, but when you achieve that - you won.
 
mladz said:
It's not true... which you confirmed with your 2018 top posts algorithm explaination. Where this algorithm makes your top posts tailored to your own habits.
Click to expand...

Yes, hashtags are going to be customized to personal viewing habits, but the algorithm is still different than the explore. This update was to make hashtags more relevant on Instagram, so suggesting everyday Instagram users to ignore hashtags seems pretty regressive.

mladz said:
With this in mind, all eyes that search that tag with be seeing different top posts.. so when are they going to see your awesome post? 9 slots available.. 5 taken up by massive accounts .. i don't like your chances.
Click to expand...

You just finished saying that hashtags are personalized to each user, and then you suggested that each hashtag is going to be taken up by massive accounts. This is just a nonsensical, hypothetical scenario in an attempt to discredit my points.

There are more ways to grow than the explore tab, @mladz. There's a time and a place for the explore tab, but it's a not a one-size-fits-all fix.
 
'You just finished saying that hashtags are personalized to each user, and then you suggested that each hashtag is going to be taken up by massive accounts. This is just a nonsensical, hypothetical scenario in an attempt to discredit my points.'

No i used an example of 5 of 9 slots being used up by big accounts. My maths then suggest 4 of 9 won't be.

So logic tells me that the feed will be both personalised and comprised of big accounts.. just like i said.
 
I just finished my hashtag research and group my niche hashtags into different sizes, like 100K-, 100k-1M, 1M-10M, 10M+
But I guess that these hashtag sizes are too large for a 2K instagram, even the gap of minimum size is 100K.

Is there any suggestions on my hashtag research? Thank you so much!
 
Well Mr @IGKing let me congratulate you for putting all this info in a way that anyone can understand it, it's obvious that you know how to make guides to teach people and i support that, If you are a Newby and you are excited to try new things on this world follow this guide, BUT if you are in the Real Business this guide is not the best to follow and sorry mr King, as @mladz tried to explain here.

The hashtag use was so unnecessary and nonsense that IG is trying to Fix this with this new feature that you can follow HT.

Why HT Sucks?
HT do not assure you any REAL Engagement.
If you get followers or any type of engagement by HT most likely they are BOTS, comments like: Great post, (Random Emoji), etc.. those are BOTs comments.

Targeted Niche HT doesn't get you anywhere, please don't be fooled by the engagement you get using any type of HT, 80%-90% IS NOT REAL or Niche related.

Think yourself as a user, Do you explore HT?, How many time you spend checking a HT feed? Maybe you only check HT because you used in your account and you want to see where you at...

But they are Totally Bad?
Not at all, just use it in a smart way.

How?
They best way to use HT is to create your Own
Let says your account is called @ VeryBigCats... everytime you post in your account use a personal and unique HT called #verybigcat and you can add 2 or 3 niche targeted HT like #bigcats #ilovecats (Just for the 5-10 Real targeted people that will engage with your account)

The only Good thing about BOT engagement is that your Pics get more likes than usual and that motivate Real user to like it
 
is it actually true that first comment hashtags don't provide any more exposure?? i always thought that they would put you on the tags pages as well
 
Outdated info...

1) Does not even discuss hashtag discovery percentage.
2) Density (size of hashtag) varies. There are some super dense hashtags but their rate of velocity changes. For example, MotivationMonday is a super dense hashtag that gets a lot of traction on mondays with 100s of post every 15 seconds. Even though that tag is super dense, it has 10-20 post every hour on Thursday. So posting Thu/Fri might yield you super positive results which totally negates his theory right there.
Another example. the BeautyNBeast hashtag IS super dense but it got it's meat during the movie early this year. Now, even though it is dense, it acts and should be treated like a lower tier hashtag.

So velocity rate of a hashtag is important.


3)
The biggest answer is to look at your stats. If you are getting 10% discovery following this technique, then you know it is bullshit advice..
Anyone can write 1000 word manifesto. What matters bottom line is the stats.

If the stats are telling you can get 40% hashtag discovery on a 20k account using tags with density of 5K ad only 10 hash tags (versus 30), who are you gonna believe? Some anonymous guru or the IG stats themselves??? Bottom line, YMMV.

So rule, look at the IG stats. And for some accounts, hash tags are irrelevant.. Screen shot to prove my point..
Learn to read the stats. If you don't know how to read stats and act of them, take a class on statistical analysis.

Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
And act on that analysis through A/B testing. Some accounts work better with 5 hashtags total. Some need 30.
 

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speedypro said:
Outdated info...

1) Does not even discuss hashtag discovery percentage.
2) Density (size of hashtag) varies. There are some super dense hashtags but their rate of velocity changes. For example, MotivationMonday is a super dense hashtag that gets a lot of traction on mondays with 100s of post every 15 seconds. Even though that tag is super dense, it has 10-20 post every hour on Thursday. So posting Thu/Fri might yield you super positive results which totally negates his theory right there.
Another example. the BeautyNBeast hashtag IS super dense but it got it's meat during the movie early this year. Now, even though it is dense, it acts and should be treated like a lower tier hashtag.

So velocity rate of a hashtag is important.


3)
The biggest answer is to look at your stats. If you are getting 10% discovery following this technique, then you know it is bullshit advice..
Anyone can write 1000 word manifesto. What matters bottom line is the stats.

If the stats are telling you can get 40% hashtag discovery on a 20k account using tags with density of 5K ad only 10 hash tags (versus 30), who are you gonna believe? Some anonymous guru or the IG stats themselves??? Bottom line, YMMV.

So rule, look at the IG stats. And for some accounts, hash tags are irrelevant.. Screen shot to prove my point..
Learn to read the stats. If you don't know how to read stats and act of them, take a class on statistical analysis.

Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
Learn to read the stats
And act on that analysis through A/B testing. Some accounts work better with 5 hashtags total. Some need 30.
Click to expand...

Good points, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

I agree with you completely on 2, and 1 & 3 are also important, but not everyone has access to insights, so I usually try to avoid going in-depth about that.

Thank you!
 
mladz said:
All the people that have their accounts gaining 1k plus a day through powerlikes don't use hashtags
Click to expand...

Power likes are obviously working for you, but don't be naive enough to think everyone's aim is to gain 1k per day. Sure, it's impressive gaining 1000 followers per day, but how easy is it to scale that to 100, 500, 1000 accounts?

You have to remember that not everyone's aim is to get a handful of accounts into the x,xxx,xxx range. That takes far too much hands-on time and cannot be automated enough. At the end of the day, my aim is to make money. If I can reach 100-150 followers per day with 0 effort besides an hour or so set-up, and scale that to hundreds of accounts easily, surely that's just as good?

And when you are starting out, without power likes or paid shout-outs, #'s are incredibly helpful. Especially with the new # follow feature IG are rolling out.

It seems to me that this is more of a personal issue with @IGKing. @speedypro actually offered a decent argument, but you seemed obsessed with the length of this well-written post.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey! I love the post, thanks for this. But two things first. Why don't you use "display purposes" for searching Hashtags? I find it much more better than IQta. And I think to use 10-20% of the Hashtag volume is also wrong if your account is fresh. For example I have a fresh account with 12 followers. I used "normal" big tags and got 120 likes from one picture and the other one I tried your suggestions. And I got only 22 likes of 37 reaches. So I just can't reach people with using hashtags with that low of volume. (Okay I didn't use hashtag volume of 100-200 but instead 1000-2000, because that would be laughable)
Thank you nonetheless!
 
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