Hashtags, do they really work?

With the follow/unfollow method not being as easy as it used to in the past I have started reading a few threads on how I can grow my accounts without using that method.

Most of these threads said that I should use the right hashtags. It sounded easy, right? I would go to one of those websites that would suggest 30 hashtags for my niche I would copy/paste them and hope that results would come. They did not, big shock.

As I stuck to it and read more and more threads and picked up a few good tips I started seeing great results on my accounts I decided to share the difference between a post that just copy/pasted from a hashtag generator, versus a post that had truly in depth research of the hashtags that were used for it.

Keep in mind this is an account with just 2k followers which I am growing, using nothing but hashtags and organic reach.

The latter result can be achieved with four followers. You should be doing better.

Shouldn't the title be 'Hashtags work' ?

They don't.

FUTUR TIM said:

The latter result can be achieved with four followers. You should be doing better.

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Can you elaborate? How to improve that reach? Thanks

They work ... 2.8k account

bro
what do you consider about a good hashtag?

overlord207 said:

How to improve that reach?

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Pick better hashtags, post better content.

FUTUR TIM said:

Pick better hashtags, post better content.

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Thanks, I think I am using the wrong hashtags on instagram. I can share the same photo on facebook and get 15k-20k likes but on instagram only 1k likes, 3k reaches.

So it seem the content is performing well but the hashtag game is weak.

What do you consider when you look for a good hashtag? Ofc not too saturated, but what other indicators?
I use a mix of 10k - 200k size hashtags for an account that averages 400~ likes. Usually make top post for at least half the hashtag but maybe those tags just didn't have enough followers.

Yes the key point here is to research each hashtag. Even ones you think are related to your niche wont be.

For example for a blog post I just wrote. I scraped 5000 posts to the #marijuana hashtag and then I looked at what other hashtags they were using. The hashtag #dank was very very popular among these 5000 posts. However if you look into #dank, it is extremely big and has 44 million posts compared to most of the other marijuana hashtags which have 7 million or close to that.

A lot of these accounts would have been better off using something much smaller instead of the popular #dank hashtag. They only use it because they are lazy, #dank is full of meme posts and stuff completely unrelated to marijuana.

So the space could have been filled with a much more niche focused hashtag that they don't bother to look into.

overlord207 said:

What do you consider when you look for a good hashtag?

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This is the reply I've left on a similar thread:

15-20 hashtags, evenly mixed between 1K-100K, related or semi-related to your post, otherwise, you can be shadowbanned.

I think 200K posts hashtag is too big for your account right now.