HashTags / Explore final debate

Hello guys,

This thread was inspired by the discussion generated in this one
[FREE] tip for noobies - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/free-tip-for-noobies.888230/

So I compiled a couple questions to get input from the community so we can work our way to the top.

1. Would you use the maximum number of allowed tags (30) or would you use less and why?

2. While your account has a small number of followers / likes would you agree that is better to use less popular hashtags? What ratio of likes per post vs post per tag would you use?

3. In your opinion what website / app is best to find / analise HashTags?

4. Do you think there is a difference between hashtags on post vs comments? Which one do you use?

5. What are your tips to hit explore besides posting 5 minutes before each round?

Any other questions I will update the list! Let's keep this clean and tidy

I started using engagement groups when my page had about 5k followers and it jumped my likes up tremendously for those posts only, but when I started tweaking the hashtags and using "less popular" ones I'm able to trend on almost all of them without even using an engagement group and my page basically runs on auto pilot now. I've also made adjustments based on the number of likes I'm averaging. Once I started getting more and more likes I moved up into more popular hashtags and am still able to trend on those as well. A good number reference of what worked for me is when I would average 200 likes per pic I would go for hashtags with <300k total posts and now that I'm averaging over 2k per post I move to 800k-1m total posts and I'm still trending consistently on over half of hashtags within a few hours.