how to do a hashtag research

Jun 5, 2023

Leveraging the Best Hashtags: How to Do Hashtag Research

Gabriella Layne-Avery

If the question "do hashtags even work anymore" is on your mind, our answer is a resounding "Yes," IF you know how to leverage them correctly.. While the chances of a hashtag helping you go viral isn't as guaranteed as it was in what many people like to consider the 'good 'old days' of Instagram, they have still proven to be highly effective in expanding your content's reach beyond your existing audience. Even if the results of hashtags aren't as significant as they were a few years ago, we still think it's worthwhile to put effort into using them.  

‍ Instagram Algorithm Updates & What They Mean for Hashtags

Over the years, Instagram has been putting in serious work on its algorithm to improve its search functionalities.

Due to these search upgrades, the secret sauce to optimizing your content's reach is now a healthy blend of strong captions with relevant keywords, the right combination of hashtags specific to your industry and niche, and visually appealing content that stops the scroll. As a result, hashtags are no longer the platform's say-all, be-all of discoverability- but they certainly remain an important piece of the puzzle.

PRO TIP: Once you find hashtags that are just right for your brand, use PLANOLY's hashtag manager to create groups of hashtags and save them in your hashtag library for future use.

‍ How many hashtags should you be using?

The answer to this question has been widely debated, especially since Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri made a statement on social media in 2022 that hashtags do not help increase visibility for content. He also mentioned that you shouldn't use the maximum 30 hashtags that you can use per post on the platform. However, many social media experts disagree with Mosseri, sharing screenshots of their insights as proof that hashtags are indeed still effective for visibility.

‍ https://twitter.com/astronomydeepIG/status/1565496137544597506?s=20  

While Mosseri recommends using as few hashtags as possible, we recommend using as many relevant and specific hashtags for your posts as you can.

‍ How do you find hashtags?

We've nailed down that hashtags are still important and effective. So how do you know which ones will actually turn into your content landing on Instagram's coveted Explore page?

‍ Begin by Analyzing Your Top Competitors - What hashtags are they using in their posts? When you search for a common hashtag relevant to your brand or business, what type of content do you see? For example, if you own a vegan restaurant, which accounts dominate the results when you search #veganmeals? Dive into those posts and view the other hashtags they use frequently. (Related: How to Research Hashtags for Your Audience )

‍ Develop a List of Hashtags for Your Common Types of Instagram Content – For every content bucket or theme, develop a list of 10-20 hashtags you will use for each post. For example, if you frequently post pictures of your product, create a set of hashtags for all product-related posts. For each type of core content bucket or theme, establish 4-5 hashtags for these hashtag types to ensure a balanced mix.

• Brand-specific (e.g. Bumble uses #makethefirstmove)
• Niche (e.g. a plant shop uses #snakeplant)
• Location based (e.g. Austin restaurants use #512eats)
• Product-specific (e.g. Adidas uses #yeezy)

Repeat this process to identify a list of 10-20 hashtags for each type of content bucket or theme you frequently post in the feed. You can use PLANOLY's hashtag manager feature to create hashtag lists and easily add custom groups of hashtags to posts before they are scheduled. (Related: How to use PLANOLY's Hashtag Manager )

‍ Are there universal hashtags that everyone should be using?

The short answer is no. The long answer is that every industry and audience is different, so it's essential to research and use hashtags that align with the interests of your specific audience. Not only does this help you better target the people you want to reach, but it helps you refrain from using overutilized hashtags that are often shadow banned and can lead to reduced visibility of your content.

‍ Instagram Hashtag Best Practices

• Understand Your Target Audience – Before creating relevant hashtags, make sure you understand what your target audience is searching for and how they search for it.
• Use 10-20 Hashtags for Each Type of Instagram Post – Use the strategy of developing a balanced list of 10-20 hashtags for each content bucket.
• Mix it Up – Use brand-specific, niche, location-based, and product-specific hashtags in each Instagram post.
• Put Hashtags in Your Caption – While it isn't the most aesthetically appealing approach, Instagram has stated that hashtags should be in captions to be effective.

Researching and establishing a set of frequently used, popular hashtags is a part of every effective Instagram growth strategy. With the right mix of hashtags with these tips and well-researched hashtags, look forward to generating more engagement, followers, and sales on Instagram!

Enjoyed reading it? Spread the word

Gabriella Layne-Avery is a Content Strategist, Creative Director, and the founder of the content marketing agency Strut Communications. Known for coining the term ‘sustainable social media,’ she believes it’s 100% possible for small business owners to leverage social media to cultivate engaged, loyal communities for their brands without spending 24/7 doing so.

More by Gabriella Layne-Avery

Can You Increase Your Instagram Following With Threads?

How to Build a Brand Voice Using AI

What to Do When Your Instagram Gets Hacked

Simplify your social planning.

From idea to post - PLANOLY is your go-to planner for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest.

You May Also Like

How to Expand Your Content Strategy to Different Platforms

5 Fitness Content Trends to Try Out In Your Content Planning

5 fitness branding tips for content creators.

CREATOR TOOLS

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR weekly NEWSLETTER

We’ve got a lot of great things to share with you. Get the latest social media industry tips and tricks right to your inbox.

DOWNLOAD our mobile app

2024 planoly all rights reserved

Hashtag Research: The Ultimate Guide to Finding and Using Hashtags

Hashtags first appeared on the social media scene in 2007 when Chris Messina suggested using the pound sign followed by words to group Tweets. Since then they’ve — in Chris’s own words — “turned out to be a big thing.” Today, they do more than group Tweets.

Hashtags are an important element in social media marketing. You can use them to do the following:

• Increase engagement with your audience
• Build your brand
• Promote your favorite causes
• Advertise products and services
• Create context for captions
• Give viewers a tool for finding your content

If you’re not using hashtags, now is a great time to learn how to find and use hashtags for your next campaign. If you are using hashtags, read on to discover ways to make your hashtag research more effective.

What Is Hashtag Research?

Hashtag research is the process of finding, curating and testing hashtags to use in social media posts.  The hashtags you choose for your posts can make or break your campaigns. It’s not enough to slap a hashtag on your posts and move on. Find the right hashtag, and you can boost your visibility online. The wrong ones can bury your post in all of the conversations taking place on the platform.

Three essential questions drive the hashtag research process:

• Which hashtags do you currently use consistently?
• Are there hashtags that are popular with your target audience?
• Do your competitors use hashtags in their posts?

If you’re familiar with keyword research, you have an idea of how it works. The goal is to identify the terms your audience is most likely to search when they want to find the type of content you produce. Your key performance indicators and marketing goals drive the process.

How to Find the Best Hashtags

The best hashtags are the ones that succinctly describe your brand and content, but where do you find them? Start here.

• Find out which hashtags your audience and competitors are using. Browse their feeds looking for the hashtags that appear frequently. They may be trending within the group or give you an idea of the terms they’re searching for.
• Search for related hashtags on your favorite platform. On Instagram and TikTok, type a topic in the search bar to find relevant hashtags . Click the Explore tab on Twitter to see the trending hashtags on the platform. 
• Use a hashtag generator. These hashtag tools give you suggestions for hashtags to use with your posts. They search social media sites to find the most popular and trending hashtags as well as related terms.

Alternatively, you may create your own hashtag. You can choose from one of the following types of hashtags:

• Acronyms (#ootd)
• Daily hashtags (#tbt)
• Emojis (#smiley face)
• Location or event (#orlando, #magicgame)
• Name of a community  on the platform (#dogmomsofinstagram)
• Name of your product or service (#bayareatoprealtor)
• Relevant phrases (#liveyourbestlife)
• Your niche within your industry (#birthdaypartyplanner) 

Selecting the Right Hashtags for Your Post

You may be tempted to look up the most popular and trending hashtags on your social media platforms, but that may not get the results you want. The top hashtags on a given platform can have billions of posts connected to them. Your post will be just one of many.

A better approach is to target your research for your content and audience. Brainstorm a list of potential hashtags. Refine the list by sorting the hashtags into categories like broad, narrow and specific.

As you choose your hashtags, consider the following:

• The hashtag should be easy to spell and remember.
• Choose hashtags that fit organically with the content you’re sharing.
• Look for hashtags related to the trending hashtags on the platform.
• Be mindful of the number of characters you use.
• Make the hashtag actionable.
• Incorporate searchable keywords in your hashtag.
• Use hashtags that are relevant to your brand.

The right combination of hashtags can take your social media marketing strategy to a new level. Whether you’ve never used hashtags on your posts or have yet to see the value of including them, it’s worth your time to research and find the right hashtags. Your hard work deserves to be seen–use hashtags to help your audience find content and gain visibility for your brand.

Want to master the art of hashtags? Check out our How-to Hashtags Guide to learn the proper way to use hashtags on each social media platform. 

IZEA Appoints Peter Biere as Chief Financial Officer

You may also like.

Top Influencers in Every Niche

Having a hashtag strategy is vital for maximizing your social media profile. Because hashtags can speed up the discovery of content that resonates with your followers the most, it's best to use hashtag research tools to find the most effective words. This way, you can raise awareness about your brand within the niche you wish to influence. When you successfully capture your intended readers through strategically selected hashtags or hashtag sets, a community can form around your official social media, whether you're an individual or corporate marketer.

7 New Tools to Add to Your Hashtag Strategy:

1. tagsfinder, 2. keyword tool, 3. metahashtags, 4. bigbangram, 6. tucktools, 7. task ant, frequently asked questions, benefits of using hashtag research tools.

Using hashtag research tools makes hashtag selection sharper and more convenient. Here are some reasons why: 

Cost-efficiency

Hashtag research tools work round-the-clock, so you can find the most trending hashtags anytime, anywhere. No more manual searches on social media channels related to your business or brand.

The best hashtag research tools collect and display the most relevant words within your industry in real-time. Since the generated hashtags also include user-generated words, you can discover new words that are likely to resonate better with your social media visitors and subscribers.

Influencer Marketing Hub's Most Popular Hashtag by Country Today tool helps you find out what hashtags are trending in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Italy, France, and Australia for the day. You can also check out Influencer Marketing Hub's Ultimate List of Trending Hashtags on Every Platform . Additionally, we have a comprehensive guide on how you can optimize the use of hashtags, depending on the platform .

These automated solutions can show you how many Internet users are using particular words, allowing you to select the best-performing hashtags.

Over time, your precise and relevant hashtag choices will attract likes and followers, which will help grow awareness and loyalty for your brand. In the process, subscribers would be motivated to try the products or services you offer.

Personalization

You can use analytics to determine the profiles of the subscribers who react to your hashtags. The findings can guide you in targeting specific market segments on your next marketing campaign based on the social media channels you use.

7 New Hashtag Research Tools to Try

There are plenty of hashtag research tools out there, which others also refer to as hashtag generators and aggregators. Influencer Marketing Hub has run several articles on this topic, but this article presents a fresh line-up of tools for you: 

Thanks to TagsFinder's adjustable search settings, you can target specific demographics by selecting your preferred country and gender. It can accept up to 10 keywords in the search field. You can also specify the words that you'd like the software to skip in the search results. Once TagsFinder generates the results, you can pick your hashtag set by clicking the X mark for unwanted words before clicking the "Copy to clipboard" button. It also regularly monitors banned hashtags to keep them off its database.

• Option to generate similar (containing the same keyword) or related meanings or both
• Bulk hashtag search
• Banned hashtag list and blocker 
• Instagrammers and Twitter users with a travel or location-based niche
• Small to medium businesses with other online marketing tools

Pricing: 

This is a free platform.

• Statistics tab displays the updated list of leading hashtags per country and nation's top localities
• Has settings to skip results with porn or sexual connotations
• No hashtag volume indicator
• No analytics

You can use Keyword Tool to find hashtags you can use on Instagram and YouTube. The software relies on Instagram's search suggestions and YouTube's autocomplete feature to collect terms and phrases related to your keyword. Besides displaying related hashtags, Keyword Tool has a People tab that shows the Instagram handles featuring your keyword. For YouTube search results, you get not just related hashtags but also related questions and phrases with prepositions.

To refine your search, the software has a "negative keyword" filter where you can input terms that shouldn't appear with your main keyword.

• Multilingual
• Negative keyword filter
• Instagrammers
• YouTube vloggers

Keyword Tool's free version lets you type up to five negative keywords and shows you the usage volume for the top five generated results. You can sign up for the pro version so that your search results are ten-fold higher than that of a regular search. Plus, you get to see the usage volume details for all related hashtags generated. Pro plans also let you input six or more negative keywords to refine your search. 

The Pro Basic ($69/month) is a single account and produces up to 7,000 keyword search results per day. Meanwhile, the Pro Plus ($79/month) is good for up to five users and allows up to 35,000 keyword searches daily. Finally, Pro Business ($159/month) lets up to 10 people use the account. It can accept up to 50 API requests per day and generate up to 70,000 search results daily. Both the Pro Plus and Pro Business display cost-per-click and ads competition data when searching for leading keywords on Google. 

• Bulk searches
• 30-day money back guarantee

Fewer or zero results for multi-word searches

• Hashtag Analytics 101: Metrics, Hashtags and Analytics Tools You S...
• Hashtag Tracker – Real Time Hashtag Tracking Tool [FREE]
• Hashtag Analytics and Research: Your Ultimate Guide + 6 Top Tools

Get several metrics about an Instagram hashtag in one search with MetaHashtags. Besides displaying similar keywords, the search result will show various analytics. MetaHashtags can take you directly to the IG accounts where those terms appear when you click the "Show Images" box. Thumbnails of those IG accounts appear below the relevant search result. Moreover, each search you make creates a tab containing the results. This tab stays active or open even after you type a new word in the search field.

Paid plans let you set the parameters of your search by frequency, size, likes, and others. They also allow you to track your rankings and search the hashtags used by IG accounts related to yours. 

• Analytics (total number of times the keyword has been used, the number of times it was posted within the hour, the average and lowest number of likes, and the average number of comments it received)
• Rank tracker 
• Banned hashtags tracking
• Influencers
• Social media marketing teams
• Small to medium enterprises

You can use the MetaHashtags hashtags generator for free, but higher paid plans come with extra features such as rank tracking. With the lowest plan (€9 or $10), you can export your hashtag lists and related data to a CSV or Excel file. The mid-tier plan (€19 or $22) allows you to view your account's rankings and "spy" on the hashtags used by your competitors. You can create up to three accounts under the top-tier plan (€29 or $33) and track each of their rankings.

• Rich metrics
• Adjustable filters
• Profile hashtag analyzer
• No location filter
• Results take longer to show for multi-word searches

Enter as many as five keywords on Bigbangram's search field or upload a link or image to get as many as 30 similar and related results from its hashtag generator. It shows the number of mentions of each word made on Instagram. The platform also has "auto follow," "auto like," "auto comment," and direct messaging functions.  

• Difficulty level indicator, including the number of results under each level: hard, medium, and easy
• Hashtag generator mobile app
• Auto follow, auto unfollow, and auto like
• Auto direct message and auto comment
• Downloaders for social media photos, videos, and profiles
• Social marketing teams
• Freelancers

While Bigbangram's hashtag generator is apparently free for public use, the website doesn't have a pricing page. Its Knowledge Base says that the four "standard packages" are worth $15, $45, $85, and $270. But it doesn't list the inclusive services of each plan. It only says that paid subscription is based on "activity time." Users can use the dashboard to check off the services they wish to access and for how many days. Bigbangram will then indicate how much they need to pay. 

• Direct messaging templates
• Sales scripts
• Multiple accounts
• Auto-follow, DM, and scheduler can only be used on Instagram

Toolzu lets you type up to five keywords in its search engine and gives you three ways to generate hashtags for your social media posts: via keyword search, URL, or photo. The hashtag generator then displays similar or related hashtags, which are categorized as frequent, average, and rare, as well as their volume of usage. The software uses Instagram's constantly updated hashtag base. 

• Regularly updated list of top 1,000 hashtags
• Analytics (levels of difficulty or how hard/easy a hashtag will become visible on social media, recently posted, top trending posts)
• Instagram profile analyzer
• Instagram downloader 
• Image editor
• Bloggers and influencers

You can use Toolzu's Instagram Hashtag Generator for free for three days. Beyond that, you'll need to contact customer support to know about their paid plans. 

• Multi-language search
• Banned and shadow-banned hashtags are automatically excluded
• Free version only displays limited results 
• Paid subscription needed to access advanced features

Tucktools Hashtag Generator Page

Tucktools Main Homepage

Tucktools' free hashtag generator for Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn has two fields: a search field for entering your keyword and your target country. After typing your search word and preferred location, the platform displays the top hashtags related to your keyword. 

• Location-based
• Multi-word searches
• Straightforward interface
• Downloaders, follower counters, trend-identifying tools for various social media channels  

Best for: 

• Emerging influencers with a location-based market
• Multi-channel marketers

Tucktools is a free platform. 

• Variety of trend-monitoring and engagement-tracking tools 
• Website management and program developer tools (XML to JSON Converter, JSON Formatter, CSS and JS Minifiers, and Color Palette hex)
• Lacks search volume indicator

Get real-time trending hashtags with Task Ant, which lists hundreds of search results according to popularity using official Instagram API data. Every search lines up all keywords related to your initial keyword together with their respective number of mentions and degree of popularity starting from the most popular terms.

• Unlimited results on the paid version
• Digital marketers
• Small to medium business owners

Task Ant's $15/week Solo Plan provides 100 results per search and lets you create as many as 30 hashtag sets. Meanwhile, its $49/month Growth Plan gives you an unlimited number of results per search. There's also no limit to the number of hashtag sets you can create.

• Advanced filters let you set the number of hashtags returned, average likes, and media count
• Performance and competitor tracking 
• Limited paid subscription options

What free hashtag-related tools can I access from Influencer Marketing Hub?

We have a free Hashtag Generator Tool for Instagram that lets you upload the image you'd like to post on your account. After you click the Upload and Generate Hashtags button, you'll find a list of words related to your photograph or graphic. The tool then lets you pick up to five words from this roster so that the tool can display the most popular hashtags related to the terms you chose from the first set.

When the second set of generated keywords appears, you can discover how popular they are by looking at the column beside it, which lists the number of mentions per keyword. You can then click your preferred results before clicking the "Copy Selected Hashtags" button. We also have a free Instagram Hashtag Counter where you can post your Instagram content and the tool instantly shows how many hashtags you included in that post.

How many hashtags is too much? 

Influencer Marketing Hub's link to the Hashtag Counter tool features an article on this subject, giving tips on the best way to use hashtags on every platform. But as a general principle, don't overuse them. Doing so will sustain engagement, and it will prevent Instagram from considering you as spammy, which could lead to a shadowban. Besides mastering the nuances of your social channel and your chosen hashtag generator, know the types of hashtags you have at your disposal. Learn more about brand, campaign, category, and event hashtags on our blog about using hashtags to grow your reach.

10 Best Mid-Market Software Solutions for Effective Influencer...

Influencer marketing has now become a powerhouse in the world of digital...

13 Best Marketing Campaigns on Facebook

When you’re marketing on a platform like Facebook, where there’s an abundance of...

6 Examples of Viral Social Media Campaigns and What Makes Them...

Here’s an open secret: virality isn’t guaranteed. It may not happen, even if you’ve...

How to Do Instagram Hashtag Research

• January 3, 2024

Content Writer

You can catapult yourself straight into social media stardom by learning all there is to know about Instagram aspect ratios and image sizes and doing your hashtag research.

In fact, the latest Instagram hashtags usage statistic shows that the average post is accompanied by approximately 10 hashtags these days. 

This article is perfect for those of you who want to learn more about the importance and diversity of hashtags.

Furthermore, we’ll help you get an idea of how to properly use them and why tracking your Instagram hashtag analytics can give you some awesome insight for future reference. 

How exactly can you find the right hashtags for Instagram? Read on and find out.

Streamline your marketing with an efficient social media strategy template.

How Do Hashtags Work?

Hashtags are the key to getting found by your target audiences. If your community is interested in a certain hashtag, chances are that they’re already following it. 

If you have been using some cool Instagram tools for quite a while, then it is most likely that you have seen or used hashtags already.

If you haven’t, that’s okay. Not everyone is knowledgeable on how to grow their Instagram organically . To put it briefly, h ashtags are words or key phrases that have the pound symbol (#) before them. 

Examples : #tradingbusiness #coffeeinla #redbullgivesyouwings #icebucketchallange #socialbee

Generally speaking, any word or group of words can become trending hashtags. However, if you’re looking at business hashtags, you will notice that most of the words used are related to the field or to the company. 

What Are Hashtags Used For?

Hashtags have two main purposes ─ t o group posts in a certain category and t o help users navigate social media platforms better.

Basically, hashtags work like keywords on search engines. People type them in the search bars and expect to find posts that have been tagged with the hashtag they used. 

Here are the benefits of using Instagram hashtags:

• Get brand exposure
• Show support for causes and social issues
• Help your target audience find your company
• Disclose sponsored partnerships 
• Group together content that is relevant to the hashtag

How to Do Instagram Hashtag Research?

In order to reap the benefits of Instagram hashtags, you will need to do some extensive hashtag research.

Picking a few random words, throwing the pound symbol in front of them, and adding them to your copies is not the hashtag strategy you should go for.

Let’s see how you can pick the best hashtags for your business.

Types of Instagram Hashtags

The first thing you should know is that there are different types of hashtags. Based on the purpose of your post, you will know what type of hashtag to use.

Also, make sure not to use the same hashtags over and over again, since the Instagram algorithm could easily shadowban you. Mix and match for optimal results.

Here are the 3 types of trending hashtags you should use:

• Community hashtags
• Branded hashtags 
• Descriptive hashtags

1. Community Hashtags 

These hashtags revolve around certain communities. They bring people who have the same ideals and goals together. Businesses can use both relevant hashtags and niche hashtags in order to create their own communities or bring their existing communities together. 

These hashtags can refer to:

• Your products or services — #marketingservices
• Your field or niche — #socialmediamarketing
• The location of your business — #marketinginlondon
• Time-related hashtags — #busymonday #mondayintheoffice
• National holidays, seasonal, or event hashtags — #happyhalloween, #superbowl
• The Instagram community you’re part of — #entrepreneursofinstagram

2.  Branded Hashtags 

Branded hashtags are the most relevant hashtags that relate to your brand or to a marketing campaign.

These are usually represented by your business’s name, a product’s name, or a certain catchphrase that is evergreen to your audiences. 

An example of a branded hashtag is Redbull’s #givesyouwings hashtag, a common catchphrase for the company. 

When selecting your branded hashtags, make sure that they are memorable and easy to use. The same can be said about the hashtag representing your brand. 

3. Descriptive Hashtags

These are possibly the most common hashtags on Instagram. They describe what can be found in your posts. 

For example, if you’re a photographer and you post some new shots of a lake surrounded by mountains, you can use the following hashtags such as #mountains #mountainscape #lake #nature, or #naturalscenery.

Basically, you can use any word that you believe describes your post. By doing so, you will make sure that potential customers find you, even without knowing your brand. 

Finding the Right Hashtags

Having a great hashtag strategy can help you surpass your competitors in no time. You also need to know how to use relevant hashtags to your advantage.

Here are the top 3 ways of finding the right hashtags for your business:

• Work with tools
• Find niche-specific hashtags
• Research your audience and competition

1. Work with Tools 

There are plenty of hashtag tools that can help you find the most popular hashtags or keywords, such as RiteTag  or  Wordtracker . These are good hashtag tools to find keywords, but if you want to make things easier on yourself, you will need to make collections of hashtags that are ready to be used.

For this purpose, you can use  SocialBee . With this tool, you can automate your social media posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and Bluesky .

Organize your social media hashtags in categories and add them to your posts with just a few clicks.

Start your free 14-day trial at SocialBee today!

2. Find Niche-Specific Hashtags 

You would think that using the most popular hashtags would help you get the clout you need. But using popular hashtags just for the sake of gaining followers or likes can actually do more damage than good. 

Here are the most popular hashtags at the moment, according to  Best Hashtags : 

Now, let’s imagine the following scenario: 👇

You are selling drones. You want to promote your business on Instagram and you decide to post a picture with a drone. One of the hashtags that accompanies the pictures is #love. 

When people look for this hashtag, they will look for love poems, love stories, pictures that somehow convey the emotion, one way or another. These are not people that are likely to buy drones. Simply put, they are not your target audience.

This is less likely to happen if you use  niche-specific hashtags.  But there’s also a catch. If you use specialized terms that nobody but people working in your field can know, then it’s very likely that regular customers will not find you based on hashtags. 

This is why you need to strive for balance. Use hashtags related to your field and business, but don’t make them too specific. 

3. Research Your Audience and Competition 

Figure out what your audience is looking for with the right hashtag strategy. What would your target audience type when looking for something like your product?

A good tip is to perform keyword research, use some of those keywords as your hashtags, and see how they perform. After all, Instagram has a search engine integrated into it and it works on the same principles as any search engine would. 

When compiling your list of hashtags, you can also take a look at the hashtags your competitors are using. Make sure you pick the ones who have the same or a bigger list of followers than you do. 

This will not only help you out with your hashtag research, but you will also see what kind of content works best in your field and for your audience.  

After you have created your hashtag collection, you can use it at any time when you’re creating new posts.

With SocialBee, you can even  add your hashtag collection in the first comment  on Instagram, seeing that this is a well-known and successful practice.

Once your hashtag research is done, you can save your hashtags in our tool and use them at your earliest convenience.

Performing hashtag research at least once a month to see if your hashtags are still relevant is also a must. Check your hashtags and renew the list if necessary. 

SocialBee: Your AI-powered Instagram management tool

Use correct hashtag etiquette .

Now that you have your hashtags, you will have to put them to good use. To do so, you will need to know how things work on Instagram, hashtag-wise.

How Many Hashtags Should You Use?

The first thing you need to know is the number of hashtags that you should use. The maximum number of hashtags you can add is 30. 

The more popular your brand becomes, the fewer hashtags you can use. Once you have reached a peak in social media popularity, you can use one to three hashtags, most of them being your brand’s name or your catchphrase. 

Where to Put Your Hashtags?

Your hashtags usually come at the end of your caption. If you want to separate your caption from your hashtags and give your post a clean look, then you can leave three empty paragraphs before your hashtags.

How to Track Your Instagram Hashtag Analytics?

To track your Instagram posts , and essentially, your hashtags, you will need an Instagram business account. Once you have one, you can access the Instagram insights and see how many impressions you got from your hashtags. 

What are Instagram impressions? Basically, these are statistics that will tell you how many times your content was shown to a user. You can find this precious data within the SocialBee app. 

Here’s how the SocialBee Analytics dashboard looks like:

Track the performance of your Instagram posts from SocialBee’s Analytics dashboard.

Start your 14-day free trial today!

With SocialBee, there are four main analytics you can track. We’re talking about audience demographics, page growth levels. Then, you can also check out your post impressions, reach, likes, comments, and shares.

Last, but certainly not least, our analytics will help you identify the best-performing posts and content types.

Enhance Your Instagram Posts with Trending Hashtags

Instagram is a great place to market your business, but to do so, you will need to post great content and generate hashtags that resonate with your target audiences.

Do your hashtag research today. Also, don’t forget to make note of the  best times to post on Instagram  and perhaps consider using a social media scheduling tool, such as SocialBee in order to further define your hashtag strategy.

Creating attention-grabbing posts is easy once you have  SocialBee , because SocialBee will help you share your content on Instagram. Be it single images, videos, carousel posts, or stories, SocialBee has your back. All you have to do is research and find the hashtags that will bring you closer to your goals. 

Article written by

Content writer at SocialBee

Related articles

How to Create a LinkedIn Business Page

Have you ever wondered how businesses successfully capture attention on LinkedIn? Knowing how to create a LinkedIn business page is

5 Social Media Optimization Strategies for Online Growth

Social media optimization might sound intimidating, but in reality, it’s a set of simple practices that can make a significant

Level up your social media game with exclusive resources delivered straight to your inbox

Proudly supporting

Out of post ideas? Get our social media calendar

Access 500+ content ideas, post examples, and Canva templates.

Use SocialBee’s Free AI Post Generator to create content for your social media profiles.

• Customizable tone of voice
• Several content variations to choose from
• 1000+ pre-made AI prompts

How to do Hashtag Research and Create a Hashtag Strategy

• Post author: Rose Carges
• Post published: July 13, 2020
• Post category: SEO

For any company, having a digital presence is key. To get the most out of your digital platforms, you need to implement SEO practices. One form of SEO, which is often forgotten, is hashtags. They are the keywords of social media . They are a great way to optimize your social media to reach the right audience and grow your brand. But how do you do hashtag research? Read on to find out!

Hashtag Research

This blog will give you all the information you need to create a hashtag strategy. It will cover: 

• What hashtags are and why they matter
• What types of hashtags to use 
• How to do hashtag research
• How to implement hashtags

Let’s get into it!

What Are Hashtags and why Should I Care About Them?

Simply put, hashtags are keyword phrases spelled without spaces and marked by a pound sign (#) in front of it.  Hashtags are essentially keywords used to categorize posts. They are an excellent way to:

•      Build up your company’s brand
•     Boost a marketing campaign
•     Keep in touch with your audience

 Hashtags help you reach your target audience.  More importantly, they help your target audience find you. For example, if you add the hashtag  #digitalmarketing to a post, people can search for that hashtag, and your post will come up. These users are more likely to engage with your post because it’s precisely what they were searching for, leading to better brand recognition and user interactions.

Hashtags that spread quickly have a wide variety of people using them and turning them into trends. This means that the keyword is popular and that many users make it a part of their conversation on social media. This does not mean every hashtag you use must become a trend. It all depends on the reason why you are using your hashtag.

Hashtags are an effective way to get more visibility and engagement on social media. A post with at least one hashtag can bring more viewers and engagement while also attracting people looking for you and the kind of content you share. Creating a hashtag strategy for your brand is worth it if you want your account to grow, gain recognition, and bring in people interested in what you have to say.

What Types of Hashtags Should I Use?  

There are a few different types of hashtags. 

Niche Hashtags: These hashtags refer to specific keywords that interest a small population, such as #digitalmarketing and #marketingtips. 

Community Hashtags: Refer to those that tap into a community. Those who follow community hashtags want to get information or content related to that community. It could be the #colibridigitalmarketing community, the #LGBT community, etc.

Audience Descriptive Hashtags : These hashtags focus on characteristics that define your audience and their interests—for example, #marketer, #fitgirls, #influencer.   

Product Descriptive Hashtags: Talk about specific products or services companies offer,  such as #website, #seo, #branding, and #contentmarketing.

Location Hashtags: Focus on a location you want to reach, your own location, or places of interest in a specific place—for example, #sanfrancisco, #sf, #bayarea.

Event Hashtags : Refer to hashtags created for events that give more information about an event. It could be branded hashtags for your own events or a type of event. Examples include: #networkingevent, #marketingevent, #artexhibit.

Using multiple types of hashtags will help you reach more people. If you only use hashtags with many posts, such as #digitalmarketing,  it will be harder to reach people. Mixing in smaller hashtags, such as event hashtags or audience hashtags, will help you reach people easily. For each post, finding a unique hashtag that matches the post’s theme is best. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

How Do I Do Hashtag Research?

There are a few different steps to tackle hashtag research. The most important thing to remember is that you need to track your work as you go. Colibri recommends making a spreadsheet with space to record each hashtag and its popularity. At Colibri, we like to post different categories of posts on different days. For example, we post a #FunFriday post on Friday. If you have different categories of posts, make sure to research hashtags to use for each category. 

Step 1. Follow trending niche hashtags (like #digitalmarketing).

This will help you see posts that are trending. You must look up the hashtag and click “Follow” to get ideas for trending topics. This can help you create new posts on relevant subjects for your business. 

• Look at other accounts similar to yours and see what hashtags they use to get inspired.
• Search your keywords on every social media platform. Check how many posts have been shared to define relevance.

Step 2. Google it .

You can find great hashtags by Googling “top used hashtags” for your specific topic or even holidays. Posting something that your regular hashtags do not apply to is a great way to develop ideas. Here’s what to do:

• Google your keywords and find the top-used hashtags in your topic.
• Filter and choose the most appropriate hashtags for your topic (consider the number of posts each has).

Step 3. Use the Google Keyword Planner Tool .

Or any other keyword research software. Hashtags are social media keywords. They help you rank the same way that keywords do with SEO. You can also cross-reference with other hashtag tools (below) to see if they could be appropriate hashtags for your social media.

• Go to Keyword Planner: https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
• Start looking for your keywords and search how they perform on each social media platform.

Step 4. Use Hashtag & Monitoring Platforms.

This will help you identify the hashtags used for each platform. Some tools suggest hashtags based on keywords that tell you how popular the hashtags are and how they perform. Other platforms track the performance of hashtags on your accounts. 

• Use any of the different platforms available to find hashtags: Hashtagify, IQ Hashtags, Keyhole, All-Hashtag, SeekMetrics.
• Select hashtags that are important for your business and posts.

Below are some of the best hashtag monitoring tools.  

• Hashtagify . Check trending hashtags + Twitter (most features are paid)
• IQ Hashtags . Instagram tracks volume, avg. likes, and comments. 
• Keyhole . Monitor hashtags and brands on Twitter, Instagram, and blogs.
• All-Hashtag . Check top, trending, and random hashtags based on keywords. 
• SeekMetrics . Generates Twitter and Instagram hashtags based on keywords. 

Top Hashtag Tips

• Don’t copy/paste the same hashtags in every post.
• Avoid hashtags unrelated to your topic, like #like4like and #goodday. Those hashtags do not reach your target audience.
• For LinkedIn, use four to seven hashtags. For Facebook, two are enough. For Twitter, around three is best. Finally, for Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags. Ensure all hashtags are relevant and related to your topic or brand.
• Add hashtags in the first comment on Instagram. This will keep the caption looking clean.
• For Instagram, include your hashtags in the comments instead of the caption.
• If there’s a particular post (special events, holidays, news), do more keyword research to find hashtags related to the holiday or special event. 
• Review how hashtags work on your social media. Check engagement and see which hashtags are most beneficial for your strategy.

Creating a hashtag strategy takes three steps. First, create your spreadsheet to document your research. Second, conduct research using the different platforms outlined above. Third, implement hashtags, review results, and update your research based on your results. Hashtags are keywords for social media, so it is essential to find good keywords and use them to grow your brand.  

Looking to do more for your social media? Contact Colibri Digital Marketing for a 30-minute complimentary strategy session to learn more about social media management and all things #digitalmarketing. Click the button below to get started!

• Schedule Your Complimentary Session!

You Might Also Like

The essential seo checklist for successful site migration.

How Often Should You Do a Website Update? A Data-Driven Guide

Are your seo efforts paying off.

Not ready to commit?

You want to get the latest DIGITAL MARKETING NEWS. JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST AND GET THE BUZZ!

Send us an email

Hashtag analytics: Your complete guide to tracking hashtag performance

Written by by Jamia Kenan

Published on  August 2, 2023

Reading time  6 minutes

Whether you’re a seasoned hashtag expert or a social marketing novice, there’s one thing that’s certain: you must track and analyze your hashtags. Hashtagging is one of the most powerful organic social media strategies, but to maximize their performance, you need to track your hashtags.

Implementing the right tags will drive people to your content and get them talking about your brand. Relevant tags also make it easier for your target audience to find your content and help brands find relevant content to share.

This guide contains everything you need to know about hashtag analytics so you can increase your brand’s reach and engagement on social media.

What is hashtag analytics?

How to track hashtags, important hashtag metrics to track, types of hashtags to track, hashtag tracking tools to use, uncover insights with hashtag analytics.

Hashtag analytics refers to the collection of metrics and data for hashtags within a social media network such as Instagram, YouTube and Twitter [rebranded to X as of July 2023]. Hashtag analytics fall under the umbrella of social media analytics brands use to inform strategy and make decisions.

Track hashtags natively using Twitter analytics and Instagram analytics or a social media management software.

Use a native app

You can use Twitter analytics to measure your engagements, impressions, replies, Retweets and other important metrics. You can access the native Twitter analytics dashboard using the Twitter analytics website or via mobile device. You can access Instagram analytics via desktop or mobile as well.

Native analytics are excellent free tools, but a social media management software like Sprout will keep track of all your social media analytics in one platform.

Use Sprout Social

With Sprout, you can view hashtag analytics for all your networks in one central location, saving you time from running analytics natively on each app.

The Sprout Social Trends Report tracks which hashtags your audience is using, how they’re performing and relevant topics. This enables you to build your content strategy around what your audience is most interested in, rather than just latching on to hashtags that are widely popular, but have little relevance to your brand or audience.

And use Sprout Listening to find out how frequently people are talking about your topic, what related terms they’re using and what the sentiment around the topic is.

Adding those keywords and hashtags into your posts will help generate more engagement and conversation around your brand online. From finding the most relevant hashtags for your brand to tracking social post performance, Sprout will help you effectively analyze your strategy.

Start your free Sprout trial

Tracking hashtags are important to determine if a hashtag is working for your social strategy. Here are a few top social media metrics that will help you determine the success of a hashtag.

Hashtags that are used often tend to be searched often, so it’s a good idea to include tags that have proven to be popular. Just make sure you’re not spamming your followers with irrelevant but trending hashtags for popularity’s sake. Popularity also helps define the success of campaigns. If you notice a campaign hashtag is popular among your target audience, you know it resonates.

Reach is an important part of your hashtag analysis because it measures how many people actually see your content. If your reach isn’t very high, you’re probably not using the best hashtags for your campaign or strategy.

Engagement and interactions

Not only do you want to make sure people are using and seeing your hashtags, you want to make sure people are also interacting with them. Posting hashtagged content that gets users sharing will expand the reach of your campaign. Engagement metrics also help you measure the impact of your campaigns.

Who, specifically, is using the hashtags? Make sure you’re seeing users within your target audience using and searching for the same hashtags that you are so your message resonates.

There are several different types of hashtags that you’ll be using in your social media content. Here’s why it’s good practice to track each one:

Location hashtags

Use location hashtags to scale your strategy internationally. Region specific hashtags help you connect with your target audience in relevant locations. For example, if you’re a West Coast based athleisure brand, you might use the tag #CaliforniaFitness.

Event hashtags

If you want to incorporate industry hashtags, consider using event hashtags. You can use these tags when your brand hosts an event, attends a conference, or if you’re tweeting about a large event going on nationally or internationally (i.e., big sporting events). You can use these tags to live Tweet, which can help generate traction around your event and increase reach and engagement on your content.

Branded hashtags

These types of hashtags are created to promote tagging your business directly and usually include a brand name, product or service. For example, Pretty Little Thing uses #EveryBODYinPLT and #PrettyLittleThing as a way to promote their clothing on Instagram.

Tracking branded hashtags—especially campaign-specific hashtags—is a great way to see how many people are talking about your business specifically.

Campaign/ad hashtags

A campaign/ad hashtag is a hashtag that your company creates for a specific campaign, launch or digital advertisement. This helps to generate buzz around one specific thing that your business is doing.

For example, Starbucks uses campaign hashtags each time they’re promoting a new drink.

These hashtags are ideal for tracking since they’re specific to each campaign’s focus compared to recurring brand or content hashtags. Use social listening to monitor your campaign hashtags and how well they’re catching on with your audience.

Trending hashtags

You can review trending hashtags natively on Twitter and Instagram’s Explore pages via desktop or mobile by tapping the magnifying glass icon. Both platforms will show the volume of people talking about or using each of the trending hashtags. Trending Facebook hashtags can be discovered by typing hashtags into the search bar at the top of the platform on desktop or mobile. Facebook will provide suggested hashtags as you begin to type.

Not all trending tags will be relevant to your brand or industry, but analyzing them will help you identify the best tags to incorporate into your strategy or campaign. Using trending hashtags relevant to your content and brand voice will extend your reach and awareness. By reviewing analytics, you will be able to see how trending hashtags differ from other ones.

There are a heap of social media management tools like Sprout that offer hashtag tracking.

Sprout Social

Sprout’s hashtag tracking tools and automated data reports makes tracking and monitoring hashtag analytics more efficient so you can increase your reach and grow your audience faster. Sprout’s Twitter Trends Report shows hashtags associated with your brand, along with the context of those messages. You can also track specific hashtags and keywords over time to analyze growth with the Twitter Keywords Report.

For Instagram, track top hashtags by engagement and add key hashtags to track within social media feeds to see who they’re being used by. Plus, you can follow tags relevant to your brand to help ensure you’re interacting with important conversations and trends.

Hashtagify.me is a hashtag analytics tool for Twitter and Instagram. With this tool, you can stay up to date with trending hashtags in your industry. View individual hashtag performance by popularity and other metrics. Also discover spelling variations, related hashtags and top users by follower count/influence.

Keyhole is a social media analytics and reporting tool that provides hashtag tracking for major social media networks including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Keyhole allows users to review common metrics like reach and sentiment, and also see how many posts were created using a hashtag, unique users and the most influential users.

Now that you’ve got more know-how about native and non-native tag tracking tools, don’t wait another day to test and track your hashtag analytics. Sign up for a free trial to experience how Sprout’s hashtag tracking tools will help you iterate your social strategy.

• Social Media Analytics
• Social Media Strategy

20 of the best social media analytics tools for your brand in 2024

6 must-have social media dashboard templates for brands

• Leveling Up

Why you need to share an executive summary of your social media reports with leadership

The social media metrics to track in 2024 (and why)

• Now on slide

Build and grow stronger relationships on social

Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.

The Beginner’s Guide to Instagram Hashtag Research

• No comments

Tips for Influencers to Create High-Quality Content

• Instagram hashtag Research

Hashtags are crucial. Period. There isn’t a point to argue about.

But why are they so significant? Why are they causing such a stir in the social media marketing world?

Hashtags are crucial in growing a 100-follower Instagram account to 100,000+ followers; after all, almost 70% of Instagram posts go unnoticed. It’s the difference between wasting time on Instagram attempting to gain any interaction and reach and being instafamous and raking in cash. By simply adding one hashtag to your message, you may boost interaction by 12.6 percent.

As a result, you can’t just put a few hashtags on your post as a last-minute addition. To get great results, you’ll need to do a lot of research, build a list, and then test hashtags over and over again. If there isn’t much of a distinction between hashtagged and non-hashtagged posts, your whole Instagram hashtag strategy is faulty.

Here’s how to do it.

Importance of the Instagram Hashtags

Since 2010, Instagram has done a bunch of changes, but one thing has remained constant: the importance of Instagram hashtags.

Using relevant, targeted hashtags on your Instagram posts and stories is still one of the greatest methods to reach new audiences in 2021. And this may lead to more engagement, followers, and consumers for your company.

Hashtags on Instagram organise and categorise images and videos. The correct hashtags may bring you in front of your target audience, even if they haven’t connected with you previously, because hashtags are used with the goal of discovering content. The photograph is catalogued by utilising these three hashtags, making it easy for other Instagram users who love healthy foods to locate it.

When a food blogger posts a photo of a beautiful smoothie bowl to Instagram, they could use the hashtags #superfoods, #cleaneating, and #vegansofig.

If you have a public Instagram account and tag a post with a hashtag, that post will appear on the hashtag page (which is essentially a directory of all the images and videos tagged with that hashtag).

The photograph is catalogued by utilising these three hashtags, making it easy for other Instagram users who love healthy foods to locate it.

Here are a few things to remember:

• When users with private profiles tag posts, they won’t show up on hashtag pages since they’re private.
• In hashtags, numbers are permitted. Spaces and special characters, such as $ or percent, will not function.
• Hashtags may only be added to your own posts. You can’t add tags to other people’s pictures or videos.
• In a post, you may use up to 30 hashtags, and in Instagram Stories, you can use up to 10.

Things to Remember for Instagram Hashtag Research

1. avoid stupid hashtags.

Why do businesses continue to use hashtags such as #likeforlike, #follow4follow, #love, and #goodday in their Instagram posts? WHY??!

Long-term, these gimmicky, generic hashtags offer little to enhance reach or engagement. You could get a slew of spam comments if you’re lucky.

Your post will not only be buried among the millions of other posts with these hashtags being uploaded every minute, but you’ll also be wasting valuable hashtag space that might have been better spent with a better hashtag. Additionally, it gives your viewers the idea that your content is spammy.

2. Add Hashtags in Comments

Instagram is all about giving your audience a visually appealing experience. Everything should be tidy, attractive, and well-coordinated.

When viewers click ‘More,’ a complete block of hashtags appears in the caption.

And don’t believe that using hashtags in your comments will have any effect on your engagement. Hashtags function in the same way whether they’re used in the caption or in the comments.

So, if you’re on the lookout for,

• A more pleasant user experience.
• A well written caption. There are no distractions.
• Initiating discussion in the comments area.

3. Don’t Use same Hashtags on every Post

Are you tempted to use the same hashtags for all of your Instagram posts? Don’t. That is a poor strategy.

To reach a new audience (which means more followers), try new hashtag combinations, and keep on top of the ever-changing nature of hashtags, change your hashtags for every post you publish. A hashtag may enjoy a spike in interaction today but fail to deliver meaningful results the next day. This is the life of a hashtag, especially one that is focused on a certain brand.

A simple method to accomplish this is to study and build a list of 100 or so popular hashtags with maximum reach in your niche, and then select 30 relevant hashtags from the list each time you wish to publish a new post. You may also build hashtag sets for specific sorts of postings.

You’re good to go if you keep picking and choosing hashtags from that list.

Instagram Hashtag Research

Now comes the fun part: finding the ideal hashtags for your Instagram photos. Many users utilise tools and applications to help speed up this process, and we’ve dedicated a whole page to our favourite hashtags tools.

However, tools will not guarantee you the greatest results; they will just provide you with a starting place for your investigation. You’ll still have to do some manual research to locate the most successful hashtags that are laser-targeted and will give your article the greatest exposure.

Here’s how you can accomplish Instagram hashtag Research, using or not using hashtag tools.

1. Find the popular posts

Ones with hashtags generate 70 percent higher interaction on Instagram than posts without them. As a result, they’re more popular and visible on Instagram than those without hashtags. All you have to do is look for the most popular posts in your field, grab their hashtags, and create a list of the best hashtags to utilise in your own posts. Simple.

Tip: You may also examine and deconstruct these posts to understand what makes them so successful, and then include similar elements into your own pieces. But that’ll have to wait for another day.

So, where do you look for popular posts?

2. Niche Hashtags

You may now follow hashtags on Instagram. When you follow a hashtag, all of the trending posts in that hashtag will appear in your Instagram feed and Stories. So, if you follow a prominent hashtag in your niche, top posts using that hashtag will display in your feed, and you can quickly build a list of all the other hashtags they’ve used.

3. Tag Search

If you follow this hashtag now, you’ll get a list of related hashtags that you may also follow.

You’ll see all the popular posts with that hashtag if you follow at least 8 to 10 related hashtags. If you’re looking to reach a local audience, include your location (country, city, state, or region) in your niche keyword and use the first trending hashtag that appears.

Make a list of all the hashtags used in popular postings.

You may also keep track of all the hashtags you’re following and remove or add more as your hashtag study progresses.

4. Explore page

This is a tried-and-true method of locating popular hashtags in your niche for Instagram hashtag Research.

Click on hashtags after searching for terms in your niche.

Each of the top 9 posts may be accessed by clicking on it.

Make a list of the hashtags they’re using on social media. (Look at their initial remark if the hashtags aren’t accessible in the post caption.)

Many well-known niche influencers have blogs where they share their Instagram techniques. You’ll even come across a few postings with famous hashtags that so and so should utilise.

6. Hashtag tools

Instead of creating up hashtags or using Instagram’s (limited) search feature, there are literally THOUSANDS of hashtag tools that can help you create hashtags, track their usage, and much more. What is the most effective approach to get started? Of sure, give one a try!

Filter out & choose suitable Instagram Hashtag

Not all of the hashtags you’ve come across can be utilised. You’ll need to filter this list, removing any hashtags that aren’t relevant to your business and grouping the ones that remain.

To begin, delete any hashtags that aren’t related to your sector. As a result, hashtags such as #likeforlike, #beautifulday, #sunset, and so on are popular. Remove them.

Remove any hashtags that occur several times.

Remove geographic hashtags from your post if they aren’t from your region or where your target audience lives. Allow it to be if you’re aiming for an international (and distant) audience.

Also, search for and eliminate any other hashtags that you believe are entirely unrelated to your company on Instagram.

The greater the number of hashtags on this list, the better. Make a list of 30 hashtags, including a few from each group, and include them into your message. Make a list of 30 hashtags and utilise them in a subsequent post. Try out different hashtag combinations to discover which ones work best.

This technique can help you locate brand hashtags, curator hashtags, location-based hashtags, and pretty much any hashtags. Keep repeating this process and upgrading your hashtag list from time to time to ensure you don’t miss out on any super-active, brand-new hashtags.

Thus concludes Instagram hashtag Research. Make this your Instagram hashtag strategy motto, and you’ll see an increase in new target followers, more interaction, and a loyal community with each hashtagged post.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You May Also Like

How to Promote your YouTube Channel for Free

• November 1, 2021

8 Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

• February 21, 2022

7 Simple Tactics To Increase Your Instagram Reach

• November 28, 2021

Social Media Metrics: What You Need to Know and Why They Matter

• November 13, 2021

Instagram Hashtags Research: What do you need to know?

Why hashtag research? Did you know that Instagram is the perfect platform for conducting hashtags research In 2023? More than 1 billion people will be using Instagram, so it’s important to understand how hashtags work on this platform. So, in this blog post, we will discuss some of the most essential aspects of Instagram hashtags research. We will also provide some tips for conducting your research!

Discover better hashtags to reach the more people, grow your follower count and get more engagement on your posts.

What is a hashtag?

Even if you are new to social media networking, you have probably seen the  hashtag symbol #   on social media sites . Hashes are   also called the pound or number sign. 

The word, hashtag, combines “Hash” and “ tag .”  

However, you write a hashtag without spaces starting with the hash (#) sign and then the keyword or phrase. Then, they can be added at the end of a post, embedded in your story, or the bio too. 

In your posts, you can click on hashtags. Hashtags link to content on social media. Moreover, these can be text, images, or videos. Using hashtags, you can search for related topics.

Instagram users can search for related content using hashtags like #love or #NewYear. They are also often used as acronyms, such as  #lol  or  #tbt .

Nowadays, you can regularly hear about challenges, discussions, or mass movements under a particular hashtag, such as #BlackLivesMatter.

With Instagram hashtags, users can express themselves, show their emotional state, or promote their content.

It’s beneficial not only for finding relevant content to share but also for giving your audience easy access to your content. Further, organizing it into categories and themes for easy searching. Further, it gives you greater visibility and opportunities to grow your audience. Thus, by using hashtags, you are reaching and engaging more people. 

In a breeze:

• A hashtag is a compound word: “ hash ” and “ tag .”
• They work like hyperlinks that group related posts under a keyword/topic.
• You can write them in your posts, stories, or bio.
• They organize your content into categories and themes for easy searching.

Visually plan your posts. Drag & drop everywhere in seconds ✨

How long have hashtags been around?

Social media networks like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have popularized hashtags over the years.

You may not know this, but hashtags were first used in 2007 by a Twitter user named Chris Messina.

The primary purpose was to group related posts under a keyword. But their value for marketing and building social media presence has grown dramatically since then.

Why do I need to use hashtags on my Instagram?

Most people will add a hashtag if they see it in a post. Adding one or more relevant hashtags to your content reaches 71% of your audience on average. 

People constantly search for hashtags to learn something new, feel a connection with the topic, and be part of a community. 

So whether you create custom hashtags or research trending ones, hashtags will make it easier for you to sort out data and engage more people with your content.

If you are considering marketing your business, you can:

• Research trending topics and reach more of your target audience
• Use relevant hashtags to give context and add value to your content
• Reuse hashtags across different platforms to reach more audiences
• Avoid making mistakes by learning from others and using social media analytics tools

If you want to know more, stick around to the end for  a quick overview of what you need to know for hashtag research on Instagram.

• Hashtag use can boost your content engagement to 71% on average
• Twitter was a pioneer in hashtag usage
• The primary purpose of hashtags was to group related posts
• Hashtag research and analytics tools are a must to reach a larger audience.

Visually plan your social content. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn + Pinterest

What does hashtag research mean?

What does hashtag research mean? Researching hashtags essentially means analyzing the data gathered from a specific hashtag. This data can assist you in estimating niche hashtags and popular hashtags to increase engagement and reach more people. 

According to studies , there are many ways to apply hashtag analysis to practical purposes, such as strategic marketing and management. Thus, social media marketing can benefit from this finding. 

An article  that studied 1,382 Instagram posts tagged with the same hashtag found that women used emotional hashtags more than men. In addition, there was a strong relationship between hashtags and likes. The authors concluded that hashtags could measure user satisfaction and feedback.

Several tools are available for predicting trends and increasing your audience using hashtag research for your business. Read on to know more.  

See Instagram’s 2023 Trend Report for predictions on beauty and style, social justice, food, and more.

• Researching hashtags is analyzing the data gathered from a specific hashtag.
• Social media marketing can benefit from Hashtag Research
• Hashtags can measure user satisfaction and feedback

How to use Hashtags for your business?

You can use various  types of hashtags  to promote your business on Instagram. You can reach different communities by using a variety of hashtags. Listed below are 9. 

• Hashtags to identify your product, e.g., #Shoes or #Bakery
• Hashtags that indicate your niche in your industry, e.g., #WeddingPlanner or #InteriorDesigner
• Hashtags you can use to find Instagram communities in your field, e.g., #bakersofinstagram or #foodiesofinstagram
• Hashtags for special occasions, e.g. #foolsday or #nationaldonutday as
• Location-specific hashtags, such as #pizzanyc, #madeinDR, and #sydneysweets.
• Daily hashtags like #mondayworkout, #fridaytip, and #wellnesswednesday.
• Hashtags related to what you do, such as #thinkcreatively or #animallove.
• Hashtags with acronyms, like #qotd (quote of the day) or #ootd (outfit of the day).
• Hashtags with emojis, like #shoes👟 or #🌞.

How to track your relevant hashtags?

You can use different types of hashtags on social media. The kind of hashtag you use will depend on your purpose. You can use content, branded, trending, campaign, or ad hashtags.

• Content hashtags. These are the keywords you tag at the end of your posts.
• Branded hashtags. You create this hashtag, so people can tag the company directly. Furthermore, tracking this one will give you an idea of how many people are talking about your specific business.
• Trending hashtags . On Instagram, you can quickly search the top section where top posts appear on trending hashtags to show you some popular posts tagged with that hashtag.
• Event hashtags. Big and small events are a great way to increase your company’s reach. So, make sure to incorporate your event’s hashtag in all the content you share related to the event, and encourage employees and the audience to do the same.
• Campaign/ad hashtags. This hashtag promotes a product, campaign, launch, or advertising. Equally important, It generates interest around what your company is doing and its latest posts.

Tools can speed up the process and make it easier, but you must carefully discern how to utilize them. 

In a breeze: 

• What hashtags to track will depend on your goal
• A brand or campaign hashtag attracts customers and promotes products
• Trending and event hashtags can boost your popularity

What Hashtag metrics should I track?

Hashtags are helpful, but how would you determine whether they are successful?

 Here are some top metrics to get you started: 

• Look at trends. Choose hashtags that are frequently used or searched. Hence, you’ll have a better chance of reaching more people. Otherwise, your posts will be buried quickly by all the new content.
• Consider the range. You can decide whether to include a hashtag based on the number of people using it.
• Engagement is key. It is not just about people seeing your content, but getting them to share and post.
• Your Audience. Who is your audience? Is your audience getting your message? For this purpose, make your content strategy based on the people interested in your services. That way, you won’t just copy random popular hashtags, instead, those that your clients may use but make sense to your business.
• Focus your hashtag research on metrics.
• Select popular hashtags.
• Create engaging content
• Tailor hashtags to your target audience.

Find the best time to post, track your follower growth, and understand what content works best with post and account analytics.

Best Instagram analytics tools for Hashtags

Which hashtag research tool is best for Instagram? Great question! Keep in mind that the most reliable hashtag research tool is the platform you are using, Hence, in this context, Instagram.

As you type a keyword into Instagram’s search engine, it ranks the most relevant hashtags. Then, It is up to you to pick the ones that make sense to use in your case.

A hashtag is one of the most powerful organic social media strategies. Still, the best way to maximize its performance is to track it. In any case, hashtags are easier to find on Instagram if the appropriate tools are available.

Instagram has a search bar that allows you to browse hashtags for your content, but they may not always give you the information you want.

Here are some Instagram analytics tools you can use. 

You can track hashtags and find influencers with  Brand24 . You can measure hashtag campaign effects, such as Reach and Engagement.

Further, Its user-friendly interface provides you with hashtag metrics to measure the number of mentions.

There are also ways to sort through the noise for the posts that matter. They offer a free 14-day trial with no hidden fees and no credit card needed.

 Key features

• Track and analyze contests. Additionally to campaigns based on hashtags.
• Hashtag popularity and performance
• Quick Reports in Excel / Data Export and customized PDFs
• Hashtag analytics
• Find influential social media profiles.
• Estimate Social Media Reach
• App version available
• Excellent customer service
• Simple dashboard
• Costly for small businesses or personal use.
• App needs improvement
• It may not have all functions in all languages.

Digimind  provides social listening and marketing intelligence services. It includes intelligent social media monitoring apps to listen, engage, analyze, and report.  

Key features

• Unlimited social media & web coverage
• Personalized tags and Re-tagging
• Automatic translation
• Real-time analysis
• Top influencers and Trending topics
• Personalized dashboard
• Daily/weekly/monthly reports in Multiple formats: pdf, ppt, Xls, jpg
• Presentation-ready reports and Custom templates
• Reach measurement and Social statistics
• Online reputation management
• Top search concepts, results, and domains
• Powerful monitoring tool
• An excellent sentiment analysis
• The interface that is easy to use
• Several report types to choose from
• Time-consuming to set up searches
• Complicated features
• Poor customer support

The visual analysis included in  YouScan ‘s social intelligence platform makes it stand out. Additionally, you can collect all your brand mentions by keywords, logos, and text on images from thousands of media sources in real-time.

• Visual analysis
• Real-time consumer insights
• Monitored topic with spam filtering
• AI-powered automated data segmentation
• Find influencers and brand ambassadors
• Collaborate with a team
• Logo recognition
• Learning tools & features
• Image recognition
• Friendly interface
• Unlimited multiple access levels for users
• API limitations
• Multi-brand/multi-category businesses not supported
• Some glitches

Best Instagram hashtag generator tools

However, beneficial hashtags are, gimmicky ones can be harmful. In general, If you use spammy hashtags, your brand image will be less appealing.

You can find relevant hashtags to popular hashtags with these hashtag analytics tools. Generally, they offer hashtag finder functions, making it easier for you to choose the correct hashtags. 

Let’s review these today:

All-Hashtag

Hashtagsforlikes.

The All-Hashtag  generates relevant hashtags that you can copy and paste into your social media posts. The tool is simple, cost-free, and easy to use.

• Generate 30 hashtags for one post
• Create your Hashtags
• Analyze Hashtags with charts
• Find top Hashtags
• Hashtags counter
• All services and hashtag tools are 100% for free
• Easy to use for hashtag beginners
• No app or software needed
• Hashtags generated aren’t always relevant.

If you don’t have an idea for a hashtag to use, this tool can help. For this purpose, Ritetag  helps you curate hashtags for desktop and mobile images and texts. 

• Real-time hashtag engagement
• Hashtag Suggestions for Texts and Images
• Group hashtags to easily compare them
• Integrations
• Google Chrome extension
• Boosts social media engagement
• Automate tweets and posts.
• May not identify less popular hashtags
• Looks outdated
• Limited insight into potential viral hashtags

What can  HashtagsForLikes  offer you? You can search hashtags while viewing difficulty scores. You can also curate hashtag campaigns to grow your reach organically. Lastly, it keeps your account safe!

So, to make better business decisions, you can track, measure, and even get insights into your competitors using their profile analyzer. Also, less time is wasted. 

Key Features:

• Live Instagram stats
• Audience Demographics
• Fraud Detection
• Brand Affinity
• TikTok Hashtags
• Research & create hashtag campaigns
• Ensures relevant hashtags for business
• Find most responsive hashtags
• Easy to use
• Good customer support
• No free version

Tips for your Instagram Research hashtag strategy

Do your research.

Make sure you do not rely solely on hashtag generator tools to create hashtags for you. Equally important, check out what the competition uses to get an idea of what works.

You will then have a better idea of what hashtag strategy works for others in your industry. You may discover hashtags to add to your plan or come up with original ones.

Use hashtags your audience is using

What if your target audience is already using a hashtag? so, why not give it a try? Just type a keyword into the Instagram search tool. Then, you will get a list of popular hashtags associated with it.

Just make sure that the content tagged with the hashtag is relevant to your brand or business. It would also be good to see what hashtags your followers are using.

Use Instagram’s features

There will be a list of related hashtags on any hashtag page that can be swiped through by swiping left from the top and recent tabs. Using this method, you can quickly identify niche hashtags more relevant to your search than the generic keywords you were trying to find.

It means a more relevant audience with less competition for the exact key phrase. Furthermore, brands looking to connect with passionate communities can use these hashtags to their advantage.

Brand your hashtag

Creating your own hashtag may be the most effective way to promote your brand. Besides, a branded hashtag is simply tagging your brand or campaign. However, keep in mind the hashtags shouldn’t be too long or too complicated to remember. 

Your audience can then learn about your hashtag by including it in your Instagram bio and highlighting it in your Instagram Stories. In addition, you can run a contest with a branded hashtag to generate content while also popularizing it.

Final Thoughts about Instagram Hashtags work

In conclusion, when it comes to hashtags, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. On Instagram, for example, you can share up to 30 hashtags within a single post, but the trend is to use just 1-3 hashtags per post.

Using as many hashtags as you can, is a good idea, but the use of repeated hashtags is penalized. Most people utilize 11 hashtags when posting.

Hashtags can contain numbers, but spaces and special characters won’t work.

Why Instagram, then? First, it’s free, but also, Instagram allows you to share photos and videos with users on iOS and Android devices and from the PC as well.

According to employees, globally, Instagram has more than 2 billion monthly active users ( CNBC ).

Thus, Instagram is ideal for gaining followers who can view, comment, share, like, and comment on your posts.

Finally, you can also connect Instagram to Facebook and get an automatic monthly report of your account activity, reach, and engagement. 

• One post may contain up to 30 hashtags
• Repeated hashtags are penalized and may appear spammy
• Special characters are not allowed
• Instagram is free and accessible
• More than 2 billion users as of December 2021

Visually plan all your social channels. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook + LinkedIn.

Visually plan your social content. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn + Pinterest.

Refreshing simple social media planning

10 Best Facebook Automation Tools for Social Media Managers

Top 10 TikTok Automation Tools for 2024

8 AI Bio Generators To Keep You Aligned With Your Brand

The Best Time to Post on Reddit

How to Create a YouTube Business Account

Hootsuite Review for 2024 

12 Ways on How to Get More Followers on TikTok

Buffer vs. Later: Which One is the Best?

How to Post on Instagram from PC (Windows and Mac) 2024

Discover trending hashtags, browse hashtag categories, and save your hashtag groups to reach the right people, grow your follower count & get more engagement on your posts!

No thanks, I’m not interested!

The #1 social media tool for small businesses Free 14-Day Trial

All-in-one Social Marketing Platform.

© 2023 Flick.Tech LTD | All rights reserved.

How to Use Hashtags in 2024 [EVERY NETWORK]

Do you know how to use hashtags? How about how not to use hashtags? Read on for all the DOs and DON’Ts before you get started.

Table of Contents

Hashtags: What’s up with them? Does anyone actually know how to use hashtags? Are they worth it? We’re answering these hard-hitting questions (and more!) today.

Spoiler: Hashtags can help boost your brand’s social media reach and engagement . If you use social media to market your brand, you should use hashtags. But using hashtags effectively is more than just making #ThrowbackThursday posts on Instagram.

This post breaks down the basics of how to use hashtags effectively on social media and why you should use them.

You’ll also learn:

• How to find hashtags that will work best for your brand
• Why using only popular hashtags isn’t the right approach
• All about hashtag marketing
• Essential tips for using hashtags on every social media platform out there

Let’s get started.

Bonus: Read the step-by-step social media strategy guide   with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are a way to group social conversations around a certain topic, making it easy for people to find content that interests them.

The pound or hashtag symbol on your keyboard (also known as an octothorpe) was initially used to mark numbers.

It was first used for hashtags in the summer of 2007 by Chris Messina . That’s when the web marketing specialist walked into Twitter’s offices with an idea. Because of the platform’s brevity, he suggested the company start using the pound symbol to group related Tweets together, forever changing the answer to, “What does a hashtag do?”

Since then, hashtag use, reach, and effectiveness have only grown. Today, hashtags aren’t just for X/Twitter. They’re used on nearly all social platforms to connect content to a specific topic, event, theme, or conversation.

A good social media strategy should include a mix of popular, relevant, and branded hashtags.

Hashtag basics

• They always start with # but they won’t work if you use spaces, punctuation, or symbols.
• Make sure your accounts are public. Otherwise, the hashtagged content you write won’t be seen by any non-followers.
• Don’t string too many words together. The best hashtags tend to be relatively short and easy to remember.
• Use relevant and specific hashtags. If it is too obscure, it will be hard to find and it won’t likely be used by other social media users.
• Limit the number of hashtags you use. More isn’t always better. It actually looks spammy.

Hashtag generator: free tool

No time to come up with your own hashtags?

Our free hashtag generator creates hashtag suggestions in 5 languages. Give it a try!

Please note:  This tool may display inaccurate or offensive material that doesn’t represent Hootsuite’s views. You’re solely responsible for use of any content generated using this tool, including its compliance with applicable laws and third party rights.

Why use hashtags?

Hashtags are a great way to connect with like-minded people and can be used for almost anything.

For example, if you’re a small business owner , you could use hashtags to promote your products or services.

You could use hashtags to raise awareness for a cause or to start a conversation. They’re also a great way to keep up with trends and breaking news.

Here are a few more reasons to incorporate hashtags into your social strategy.

Increase engagement with your followers

Including hashtags in your posts allows you to join ongoing conversations on social media. And most importantly, it makes your posts visible in those conversations.

This can lead to greater engagement, boosting your brand’s social media engagement through likes, shares, comments, and new followers.

Source: @sadmagazine on Instagram

Build brand awareness with branded hashtags

Creating a branded hashtag can be an effective way to promote your business and drive conversations.

Branded hashtags can be as simple as using your company name or incorporating a tagline into a hashtag.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SubwayCreatures (@subwaycreatures)

Sephora, for example, is big on building a loyal following. They work with micro and macro influencers, repost UGC on the regular, and have a branded hashtag for their crew: #SephoraSquad

@sephora Don’t even THINK about pinching @linsmakeuplooks today 💚 #SephoraSquad ♬ original sound – sephora

Add context to a social media post

On X/Twitter, you don’t have a ton of space to write a caption. Only 280 characters , to be exact.

On Instagram, longer captions aren’t always the most effective . Same with Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or any other platform. Sometimes less is more.

Using a hashtag can be a simple way to contextualize what you’re talking about without using up valuable characters or writing repetitive captions.

Google, for example, harnessed Pi Day traffic by combining the trending hashtag #PiDay into its caption.

You can’t spell Pixel without Pi. Happy #PiDay , #TeamPixel ! https://t.co/5hEmWWCQBr pic.twitter.com/7iVTh8V3e2 — Made by Google (@madebygoogle) March 14, 2024

Help your target audience find you

On LinkedIn and Instagram, users can follow hashtags and other users. Using a few popular hashtags can be another way to help new users find your brand.

Source: Instagram #travel

Disclose sponsored partnerships

This section is for influencers and brands who work with influencers.

When working with brands, influencers must inform their audiences that a piece of content is sponsored. It’s the law—the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) updated its advertising disclosure guidelines for online influencers in 2023.

Failure to comply can result in high fines for both the influencer and the brand.

So, influencers, remember to use hashtags clearly indicating a sponsorship on your branded posts.

Capitalize on a trend

One of the greatest gifts TikTok ever gave us was its challenges. If you can jump on a TikTok trend and make content that’s fun for your audience that isn’t too heavily promotional, it’s a win-win.

Don’t forget to include the challenge-specific hashtag in your caption!

Source: Nike on TikTok

Trends will, of course, pop up on other platforms too. So keep an eye out for ones that resonate with your brands. Or use Hootsuite’s social listening capabilities to do it for you!

And brands? Make sure that you look for such hashtags when reviewing and accepting influencer content.

How to find the right social media hashtags

You’ll have to do a little research to find hashtags specific to your brand, industry, and audience. We’ve got a few tips to help you get started.

1. Monitor social media influencers and competitors

Start by doing a competitive analysis on social media . Gather intel about your competitors and any relevant influencers within your brand’s niche.

Make a note of which hashtags they use most often and how many hashtags they use in each of their posts. This will help you learn how your competitors are engaging with your shared target audience and which keywords they tend to use.

2. Know which hashtags are trending

RiteTag lets you type your social media caption into the text bar and upload the photo you’ll pair with your caption.

RiteTag generates trending hashtag suggestions based on your content. You’ll see the best hashtags to get your post seen immediately, as well as hashtags to get your post seen over time. Click Get Report for a detailed analysis of the hashtags it displays.

Source: RiteTag

3. Get a social media listening tool

Not sure which hashtags are best for which network? A social listening tool like Hootsuite can help you do your research.

Social listening tools will also clue you in on what’s trending in your industry. You can use these popular topics to search for hashtags related to them on the different social platforms you’re on.

4. Find related hashtags

If you already know which hashtags are working well for your brand, consider using related hashtags. These might be a little more specific than the popular hashtags you’re already using, which could help you connect with a more targeted audience.

Start typing your hashtag into the platform’s search bar and see what search terms are suggested. Those will be related terms to your search and are all viable options for new, related hashtags.

5. Analyze which hashtags were successful on past posts

Keep track of which hashtags you’ve used on past posts. Analyze which posts have been most popular, then see if there’s a trend with the hashtags you’ve used.

If you notice some of your most popular posts always contain a few of the same hashtags, make a point to include those in your future posts as well.

6. Use a hashtag generator

All this research to come up with the right hashtags for every. single. post. is a lot of work.

Luckily, you can either use the free tool in this post (scroll up!) or Hootsuite’s handy in-platform hashtag generator.

When you create a post in Composer, Hootsuite’s AI technology can recommend a custom set of hashtags based on your draft. The tool analyzes your caption and the images you’ve uploaded to suggest the most relevant tags, like AI magic.

To use Hootsuite’s hashtag generator, follow these steps:

• Head to Composer and start drafting your post. Add your caption and (optionally) upload an image.
• Click the hashtag symbol below the text editor.
• The AI will generate a set of hashtags based on your input. Check the boxes next to the hashtags you want to use and click the Add hashtags button.

That’s it! The hashtags you selected will be added to your post.

You can publish it now or schedule it for later. Your future self will thank you.

Everything you need to make engaging content. AI support for captions, an AI hashtag generator, and access to Canva in Hootsuite.

How to use hashtags on every social network

Here, find simple, easy-to-read tips for using hashtags on different social media platforms.

X/Twitter hashtags

Optimal number of hashtags to use :, where you’ll find hashtags on x/twitter:.

You can use hashtags anywhere in your posts. Use them at the start for emphasis, at the end for context, or in the middle of your post to highlight a keyword.

Hashtags can also be added in a comment when you Retweet, in replies and in your X bio. Or, type a hashtagged keyword into Twitter’s search bar to find hashtagged content.

You can also see trending hashtags in X’s trending topics.

Win on Air. 💨 Engineered to the exact specifications of championship athletes, Nike Air absorbs impact and shifts energy back into performance—from the track to the pitch to the court. Tap the link to learn more. https://t.co/viqRzLDrwJ #NikeOnAir pic.twitter.com/WZDZyoYGdD — Nike (@Nike) April 11, 2024

Essential X/Twitter hashtag tips :

Technically, you can use as many hashtags as you like in a Tweet within the 280-character limit. But the platform recommends sticking to two tops.

Instagram hashtags

Where you’ll find hashtags on instagram :.

Include your hashtags after writing a great Instagram caption . Some brands like to use spacers (a . per line works well), so the hashtags show up after the caption’s truncation.

You can also include hashtags in the comments section, like this restaurant did:

Source: Heritage Asian Eatery on Instagram

You can include up to 10 hashtags in your Instagram Stories. However, Instagram Stories are no longer featured on hashtag pages or shown to users who follow a tag.

This means that hashtags won’t necessarily help get your Stories in front of new audiences, but you can still use them to add context to your content.

Including hashtags in your brand’s Instagram profile bio is also possible.

This detailed guide will help you up your Instagram hashtag game.

And, of course, watch our strategy video:

You can search hashtags in the Tags tab of Instagram’s Explore section and follow hashtags. That means content from any creator will show in your feed as long as it includes the hashtag you’re following.

Essential Instagram hashtag tips:

• Consider posting your hashtags as the post’s first comment so followers can focus on the great caption you’ve written.
• With an Instagram Business account, you can access Instagram Insights . Then, you can see how many impressions your profile got from hashtags.
• Avoid adding hashtags in the middle of your captions or comments, as they can potentially make your content less accessible to people using text-to-speech readers.
• Grouping hashtags at the end of your caption (or in a comment) is the safest bet.

Pro tip: Use our free Instagram hashtag generator to get ideas for Instagram-specific hashtags in 4 different languages.

Facebook hashtags

Optimal number of hashtags to use:, where you’ll find hashtags on facebook:.

Hashtags can be included in any part of your written Facebook post or in the comments.

Hashtags are also useful for grouping content in private Facebook groups by theme or topic.

You can also search for a hashtag using Facebook’s search bar. Or click on a hashtag to see a feed of Facebook posts using that same hashtag.

You can search hashtags used in private Facebook groups using the “search this group” bar (the magnifying glass on the right under the banner and menu items).

Essential Facebook hashtag tips:

• Because so many users’ profiles are private on Facebook, remember that it’s more challenging for brands to track how users are interacting with your hashtags.
• Monitor your brand’s hashtags and see which public profiles are joining in the conversation by using the URL facebook.com/hashtag/[keyword]. Include the keyword you want to search at the end.

YouTube hashtags

Where you’ll find hashtags on youtube:.

Add a few hashtags to your brand’s YouTube video title or in the video description.

Our friends at Hootsuite Labs ( subscribe now! ) include 3-5 hashtags in the description of every video they post.

Source: Hootsuite Labs on YouTube

Click on the hyperlinked hashtag to see a feed with other videos that also use that same hashtag.

Remember: Don’t use more than 15 hashtags. YouTube will ignore all the hashtags and possibly flag your content because of your spammy behavior.

YouTube hashtags aren’t the only way to help users find your videos. We have 12 tactics that will help your brand’s videos get views .

Essential YouTube hashtag tips:

• Hashtags are hyperlinked in titles and descriptions, so followers can find other content with the same hashtags by clicking on either.
• If you don’t include hashtags in the title, the first three hashtags in the description will show above the title of your video.
• Type “#” into the YouTube search bar to find popular tags on YouTube.

LinkedIn hashtags

Where you’ll find hashtags on linkedin :.

Incorporate hashtags anywhere into your LinkedIn posts.

You can also search hashtags using the platform’s search bar. Trending LinkedIn hashtags will show in the News and views section on the home page.

For more tips, check out our guide to using hashtags on LinkedIn and tips on using LinkedIn hashtag analytics .

Essential LinkedIn hashtag tips:

• LinkedIn is a professional platform. Keep the use of hashtags professional, too.
• Follow hashtags on LinkedIn to see recent posts incorporating that hashtag.
• LinkedIn will give you hashtag suggestions as you write a caption. Use them!

Pinterest hashtags

Where you’ll find hashtags on pinterest:.

While Pinterest is considered more of a keyword engine , hashtags can give your content an extra boost when used correctly.

Source: GYB on Pinterest

When using Pinterest for business , include Pinterest hashtags when writing a Pin description or in a written description when Repinning.

Pinterest even offers hashtag suggestions (in the mobile version only) when creating a new Pin.

Essential Pinterest hashtag tips:

• Think of Pinterest as a search engine. Use hashtags that are searchable, specific, and contain relevant keywords.
• Don’t use more than 20 hashtags in a Pin description.

TikTok hashtags

Where you’ll find hashtags on tiktok :.

Hashtags on TikTok can be found in video descriptions or on the Discover page.

On Discover, you’ll be able to view trending hashtags and any videos currently using them.

@hailymoulton You can never take my memes away from me #socialmediamanagercheck #socialmediamanagerstruggles #socialmediamanagerlife #socialmediamarketing #marketingtips #marketing #socialmediamanagersbelike #socialmediamanagersoftiktok #smmprobs #digitalmarketing #smm #socialmediamanagerprobs #marketingtiktok #socialmediamanagerproblems #socialmediamanagertiktok #socialmediamanager #socialmediamanagers ♬ nintendo wii (mii channel) song – julie on the internet

You can also use the search bar to find hashtags that interest you.

Pro tip : Use our TikTok hashtag generator to get ideas for TikTok-specific hashtags in 4 different languages.

Essential TikTok hashtag tips:

• Use a combination of niche and trending hashtags.
• Leave space in captions for your hashtags.
• Create a branded hashtag challenge to engage your audience and boost brand awareness.

Need more hashtag ideas? Try these 28 daily hashtags!

Find the best hashtags and manage your entire social media presence with Hootsuite. Schedule posts and Stories, easily engage your audience, measure performance, and more. Try it free today.

With files from Colleen Christison .

Boost engagement and save time with an AI writer, hashtag generator, and Canva in Hootsuite.

Become a better social marketer.

Get expert social media advice delivered straight to your inbox.

Hannah Macready is a freelance writer with 12 years of experience in social media and digital marketing. Her work has appeared in publications such as Fast Company and The Globe & Mail, and has been used in global social media campaigns for brands like Grosvenor Americas and Intuit Mailchimp. In her spare time, Hannah likes exploring the outdoors with her two dogs, Soup and Salad.

Related Articles

How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 9 Easy Steps [Free Template]

Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.

How Often Should a Business Post on Social Media in 2024?

The answer to “how often to post to social media” varies by platform. But it will also require some testing on your own accounts.

264 Creative Instagram Captions [Free Caption Generator]

The best Instagram captions add context, show off your brand’s personality, entertain your audience and compel people to take action.

7 Smart Ways You Can Use TBT To Grow Your Brand on Social

TBT — or Throwback Thursday — isn’t just for old baby pictures. We’ve got 7 tips to help your brand make the most of the popular hashtag.

• Digital Marketing

How To Do Hashtag Research For Instagram

 • 4 min read

Table of Contents

It’s no secret – organic engagement and hashtags go together like avocados and toast. And, similar to “cooking” our beloved avocado toast, it’s easy to find hashtags. Too easy . The reality is, anyone can smash fruit onto a piece of whole-wheat bread, just like how anyone can find a set of hashtags and slap it on an Insta caption. But will that result in organic engagement or a worthwhile breakfast?

Probably not.

With that being said, organic engagement deserves a little TLC. If you want your posts to organically reach more of the right people, hashtags are your cup of tea. The right hashtags. But, what are the right hashtags and how do we find them?

Luckily, when it comes to how to do hashtag research for Instagram, it doesn’t have to be rocket science. Using a correct hashtag-research strategy means you will spend less time getting better hashtags, which will in turn get you better results, and you may even find that you (dare I say it) enjoyed the process.

Okay, first things first. Before I get too into the specifics of hashtag research, we should lay down some ground rules.

• If you are unsure of what a hashtag is and why you should be using them, you may need a bit of refreshing on the purpose of a hashtag .
• Switch up your hashtags! I recommended creating 3-5 sets of hashtags that you can alternate between. Make sure that you do not used the same hashtag too often.
• Use hashtags that have between 25,000 and 500,000 posts. Variety is preferred! The only exception to this rule is for a branded hashtag.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dive in!

Recommended Hashtags to “Follow”

As you may have noticed, on Instagram, you now have the capability of following a hashtag! Not only can you incessantly indulge with your favorite bloggers hashtagged content, it’s also the way perfect way to do a little hashtag research.

To find recommended hashtags, head over to your profile page. Once you are here, click on “following” and then “hashtags”.

Although Instagram originally created this section to help you find interesting hashtags to follow, I find that it’s a great resource to find trending hashtags that you may wish to use on your own profile. Score!

Use Instagram Autocomplete

Let Instagram do the work for ya. If you know a category of hashtag that is valuable to your brand, for example, “travel”, type that into the search feature of Instagram. After doing so, you will see that other related hashtags will appear as well.

Referencing back to our third rule, hashtag size, look for hashtags that are within the 25,000 to 500,000 range. As you can see below, hashtags like #travelling has 41.7 million posts. Spam alert! On the other hand, #travelbloggervibes has 21.4k posts and #travelbloggerlife has 312k. Much better.

Use Related Hashtags

Once again, let Instagram do the heavy lifting. Search for a hashtag relevant to your social media page and click on the result. In the example above, I chose the hashtag #travelbloggerlife. After clicking on the hashtag, you will see a list of other related hashtags toward the top of the page. Personally, this is my favorite way to find hashtags.

After clicking on a new hashtag, such as #travelmemories, you will find a whole new set of related hashtags. Essentially, it’s a never ending rabbit hole. If you geek out on hashtags like I do, you will get lost for hours.

Pro Tip: Keep in mind, if the hashtag you search is too small, related results will not come up. I would suggest searching an initial hashtag with at least 10,000 posts!

Monitor the Results

If you’ve switched to a business profile on Instagram , good news! You can track how your hashtags are performing! To view this data, click on any post on your profile, look right under the picture, and click on “View Insights”.

From here, you will have access to detailed analytics on your post, from impressions and follow to how each of those impressions found you! Here, you will be able to see how many views were from hashtags. If your numbers are little to nothing, this is a good sign that you may need to switch up your hashtags.

Pro Tip: If you consistently receive 0 impressions from hashtags, you may be shadowbanned. Although rare, shadowbanning happens when you get flagged for spam – perhaps from using the same hashtag too often or if you’ve used a hashtag typically flagged for spam.

Yes, They Work.

Regardless of what you’ve heard, yes, hashtags work. If used correctly, you will find that you connect better with your target audience, get exponentially higher engagement and impressions on posts, and that you will start to build relationships with valuable partners.

So, next time you’re eating the same, monotonous avocado toast for the fifteenth day in a row and just hashtagged your latest Insta pic with #love and #monday, remind yourself – you can do better.

Subscribe to our Blog

Stay up to date with the latest marketing, sales, and SEO tips and news.

More from Markitors

9 digital marketing channels you need to be taking advantage of, 12 solid marketing tactics that work for any industry, 10 stellar call-to-action examples: how to write the perfect cta, how to hire a marketing agency that will meet your needs, a guide to chatgpt-4 & the plug-ins beta feature, why you should be creating customer journey maps + free template, © 2012 – 2022 markitors.

• Privacy Policy

GIVE US A FOLLOW

Get in touch.

• [email protected]
• Albuquerque
• SEO Lead Generation Services
• Keyword Research Services
• Small Business SEO
• Local SEO Services
• WordPress SEO
• SEO Content Services
• SEO Copywriting Services
• On-Page SEO Services
• Technical SEO
• Ecommerce SEO
• Education SEO
• Healthcare SEO
• Other Industries

We’re committed to your privacy. Markitors uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information, check out our  privacy policy .

← Back to Articles

Dec 28, 2023

How to Use Hashtags Effectively on Social Media

• Social Media Marketing

Written by Clodagh O’Brien

When it comes to promoting your brand on social media , hashtags are a great way to increase engagement and drive brand awareness. Also known as the pound sign (#), the hashtag is very effective in making your content discoverable to a captive audience.

Hashtags were first widely used on Twitter (now X), but they have become commonplace on other social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, or ‘tags’ on newcomer Threads. On many, hashtags now act as a search engine for users to find information and ask questions. 

Mastering the hashtag gives you a powerful way to engage your audience and increase your social impact at no cost other than the time it takes to do some research and pay attention to trends.

Used correctly, hashtags give context to your social posts, help people interested in your topic find your brand and help expand your influence and followers.

• What is a hashtag? 
• What do you do with hashtags?
• What does a hashtag mean on social media?
• What are hashtags important?
• How to find effective hashtags: Start with influencers
• Other research tools for finding hashtags
• How to use hashtags on X
• How to use hashtags on Facebook
• How to use hashtags on Instagram
• How to use hashtags on Pinterest
• How to use hashtags on TikTok
• How to use hashtags on LinkedIn
• How to use hashtags on Threads
• How to design a hashtag strategy

Free 2024 Social Media Calendar

What is a hashtag.

A hashtag is a word or keyword phrase preceded by a hash symbol (#). It’s used within a post on social media to help those who may be interested in your topic to be able to find it when they search for a keyword or particular hashtag. It helps to draw attention to your posts and encourage interaction.

For example, if you’re a local deli or store, you could use #sandwich or #foodie when you post a photo of that lunch you really liked!   

What Do You Do with Hashtags?

When using a phrase as a hashtag, you spell it out without spaces, such as #usinghashtags. It can include numbers but not symbols or punctuation. 

The hashtag can be placed at the beginning, middle or end of your social media post or comment, and it allows what you have written to be indexed by the social media network. With this strategy, people who are not your fans or followers can still find your content.

If you need some guidance on how to research keywords to feed into your hashtags, check out our  infographic for five easy steps .

“15% of consumers prefer to search on social media rather than search engines, while 31% use them to find answers to their questions” HubSpot

What Does a Hashtag Mean on Social Media?

While it sounds simple to place a hashtag in front of your keyword, there’s some other basic information that’s important to know when you are trying to be found by using hashtags.

Using hashtags only makes a difference in your social media strategy when done the right way. 

Tips for using hashtags

• Don’t get carried away using a hashtag every couple of words. The number of hashtags that can be used depends on which platform you are using. But in most cases, one to three hashtags can have more impact than a lot of them.
• Keep hashtags short and memorable rather than trying to use a lot of words in one tag. Remember #BlackOutTuesday being used successfully as part of the Black Lives Matter movement in America in 2020?
• Don’t try to choose hashtags that are too clever or obscure. If you choose a tag that no one is going to search for, it won’t benefit your marketing as it won’t be found!
• Use hashtags that are detailed and specific as this will lead to better results than broad or general ones. Broad terms are not likely to be searched, and if you use them, your content will probably get lost in a sea of unrelated content.
• Focus on hashtags with low or medium-volume search to hit the right audience. Using high-volume hashtags runs the risk of attracting spambots.
• Don’t try to force hashtags into every post. Instead, use them when they add value and are likely to stimulate conversation and interaction.
• Hashtags can not only attract members of your target audience but can also be used to research your competition. Search using hashtags, and you will uncover relevant content related to your topic.

Top tip:  Be mindful of accessibility and clarity when creating your hashtags. It's worth keeping the camel case in mind which is capitalizing the first letter of each word when writing compound words or phrases such as eBay or eBook. Read our recent blog to find out more about digital accessibility for marketers .  

Why are Hashtags Important?

Hashtags are important on social media as they enable your content to be found by the right people. Using relevant hashtags helps give context to your content and drives traffic so that you can boost views, likes, and shares. The key is finding the right hashtags that match your content and appeal to users.

How to Find Effective Hashtags: Start with Influencers

There can be a fine line between hashtags that are too general and hashtags that are too complicated or can’t be found. A good place to start to determine what hashtags are effective is by paying attention to what hashtags influencers  use in your niche.

The chances are you have a good idea who the influencers are that are capturing the attention of your audience, but if you are brand new to a niche, how do you find them? 

For a particular niche, the influencers are the people whose voices are most trusted and listened to, such as celebrities, famous bloggers, and YouTube users. There’s also a great bank of B2B influencers that you can use to create marketing impact, just make sure they are relevant to your business.

A great tool to use to identify influencers is BuzzSumo. Using this tool, you can find the top content, bloggers, publications and writers in your niche. Follow the top influencers, and notice the hashtags they use regularly to tap into relevant keywords and trends.

Once you identify relevant influencers, you should use an influencer tracker tool to keep a list of important factors such as social channels used, specialty and relevance to your brand.

Other Research Tools for Finding Hashtags

Other research tools are specifically geared to narrowing down information about hashtags. Look into the following tools for help in identifying effective hashtags in your niche:

• RiteTag offers instant hashtag suggestions in real-time engagement.
• Hashtagify .me is a tool that allows you to search for popularity and trends of hashtags.
• Keyhole provides you with a free search function and gives you real-time data on a range of factors.
• Copyai hashtag generator uses AI to create hashtags for your social posts.
• Hashtagforlikes is a generator tool for Instagram and TikTok that searches for live stats to help you create campaigns. 
• All Hashtag creates hashtags for a range of social platforms 
• Hashtag Generator Tool  is no frills and was created by Influencer Marketing Hub for Instagram and TikTok
• Keyword Tool enables you to search for Instagram hashtags based on a keyword  

Remember to search for keywords related to your content on social platforms to see what hashtags come up. In addition, be sure to use social listening tools to understand what users are talking about and any trends that you could relate to your brand.

How to Use Hashtags on X

Using relevant hashtags on X (previously Twitter) can increase your engagement, as long as you don’t go overboard. One or two hashtags per tweet should be enough. When you use a couple of hashtags and ask your followers to retweet, this can result in even more engagement.

Here’s a simple use of relevant hashtags by Adidas. 

The use of hashtags on X will make your post accessible when people search for your tag. It can also help you to find conversations to get involved in. For even more impact on this platform, research trending hashtags. 

How to Use Hashtags on Facebook

When you’re trying to get more exposure for your Facebook posts, using hashtags may help as they can boost organic reach. However, they are not as popular on Facebook as on other channels. 

On Facebook, it’s important not to use too many hashtags. Usually, it’s recommended to only use one or two. More than that will make you seem unprofessional and could annoy those reading your posts.

You can find relevant hashtags to use by simply typing a keyword into the search bar.

It may also be worth going back to your top-performing Facebook posts and reposting them with relevant hashtags. This not only reuses old content that resonated with your followers but may attract new ones that have an interest in your product or service.

How to Use Hashtags on Instagram

Using hashtags on Instagram can increase reach and drive engagement. So feel free to use up to ten or eleven relevant and popular hashtags for Instagram Stories or Reels to reach the widest audience possible.

A combination works well on Instagram such as popular hashtags, location hashtags, niche hashtags, content-related hashtags and branded hashtags. 

You can use as many as 30 hashtags on a regular post on Instagram. You probably don’t need to use that many, but it’s good to know that using more is acceptable here, so you can experiment.

See this example to get an idea of what type of hashtag could work.

Use the search box to see what hashtags influencers or competitors use to engage on Instagram. Since this is the best platform for multiple hashtags, try a wide variety and use them on posts, photos and comments.

How to Use Hashtags on Pinterest

Hashtags are a great way to help people find your content based on keywords on Pinterest and group them into categories. 

Over the past few years, Pinterest seems to have reduced the importance of hashtags - mainly because spammers were using hashtags to get to the top of feeds as posts with hashtags were once put in chronological order. Plus, hashtags no longer seem to be clickable.  

But hashtags still have a place on the platform. The key is to use specific and relevant hashtags that describe the content in the pin. This will help your content get found particularly if you use Pinterest for Business . 

The image below is an example of the Pins that came up for the hashtag #digitalmarketing.

If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these 3 inspirational Pinterest campaigns .

How to Use Hashtags on TikTok

TikTokers use hashtags on their videos to categorize content. These hashtags are also clickable meaning that your content will feature alongside other relevant videos. Like the other social platforms, using hashtags on TikTok helps to increase reach and helps the TikTok algorithm to decide which users see your content on the all-important ‘For You’ page.

The limit for captions on TikTok is 4,000 characters, so you have room to play with hashtags and see what works. Try to mix it up by using popular and niche hashtags to get the most reach.

Be aware that hashtags on TikTok change frequently so you need to keep your eye on the ‘Discover’ page to see what’s trending.

How to Use Hashtags on LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, people haven’t always used hashtags, but they work on this platform the same way as any other. Not only can they help you to expand your organic reach but you can build a community around your brand. 

One to three hashtags are usually recommended for LinkedIn. These can be added using the ‘Add’ button under ‘Hashtags’

The use of hashtags on LinkedIn can get your posts in front of people outside your network. Let’s say you have 500 LinkedIn connections, posting without a hashtag limits your content to that network. However, if you use a hashtag such as #PPCMarketing, you may triple the number that sees it driving up your post engagement and credibility.

How to use Tags on Threads

A newbie to the social media market, Threads is already picking up pace amongst users. To tap into the power of hashtags, the network has launched tags to help categorize posts and help in discovery. 

The tag works differently from hashtags on other platforms as instead of showing up as a hashtagged word, it is converted to a blue-inked hyperlink. 

Typing a “#” into a post brings up a card with the topic you’re tagging or similar ones. Beneath that, each topic comes with a count of related posts like Instagram.

The feature is currently being tested in Australia but may roll out to more locations in 2024. 

How to Design a Hashtag Strategy

Choose specific hashtags whenever possible, because the more specific you can get, the more likely you are to attract a targeted audience. Use capital letters at the front of each word, although not required, to give context to your post and show what you are trying to communicate.

Your competition is probably already using hashtags in their social media strategy. How successful are they at engaging your mutual audience? Pay attention to how much or how little they use hashtags and what the response is.

There are no definitive answers when it comes to which hashtags you should use or how you should approach your strategy. 

A successful hashtag strategy starts with knowing your audience and taking the time to be familiar with what works on each platform. Beyond that, you will continue to learn what works (and what doesn’t) by using hashtags as part of your social media strategy and analyzing your results.

Hashtags are a great tool for communicating with your followers as well as increasing engagement and attracting new customers.

Use Hashtags to Become a Social Media Superstar

Whether you’re new to social media or a seasoned veteran, DMI’s certified Social Media Marketing course will help you understand the ins and outs of social media networks. From Facebook to YouTube and TikTok, you will understand how to drive engagement and extend reach. You will also learn how to devise a successful social media strategy and create engaging social content (hashtags included!) 

Updated 2022

• Social Media Style Guide and Template
• Podcast: Practical Social Media Strategy
• Competitor Analysis Tracker
• 10 Steps to Creating a Social Media Strategy

Related Free Video Lessons

• Instagram and Snapchat Snaps
• Strategy and Planning Media Buying
• Social Research Introduction to Social
• Strategy and Planning Media Planning

Related Content

Webinars: webinar: social media roi, toolkits: social competitor analysis tracker, toolkits: 2024 social media calendar, articles: 8 ways to get noticed on instagram, articles: 6 of the most important social media & influencer trends, articles: how to use the twitter algorithm to your marketing advantage, clodagh o’brien.

Clodagh O'Brien is a content creator and strategist. Over the last 12 years, she has created and managed content for many SMEs and global brands. She's passionate about digital marketing and the impact of technology on culture and society. You can find her on  Twitter  or  LinkedIn .  

• Categories:

Recommended For You

Ebooks: ebook: social media marketing for b2b marketers, ebooks: how to become a social media manager, articles: 6 essential kpis for your influencer marketing campaign, articles: 20 surprising influencer marketing statistics, cpd points available.

This content is eligible for CPD points. Please sign in if you wish to track this in your account.

CPD Points Available

This content is eligible for CPD points. Please login if you wish to track this in your account.

• View Courses
• Change Password

Get the latest digital marketing data, insights and toolkits from DMI

Copied URL to clipboard!

Instagram Hashtag Generator

Meet the ultimate hashtag research tool for instagram.

Actually, it’s a collection of tools from Later Social. They’ll help you extend your reach, get more engagement on your posts, and save a ton of time while managing your profile.

LATER’S HASHTAG TOOLS

Maximize the impact of your hashtags

Schedule your Instagram First Comment

Get all of the reach, with none of the clutter in your caption by scheduling your first comment at the same time as your post.

Hashtag Suggestions

Feeling the hashtag fatigue? Tell us your go-to hashtags, and we’ll give you some new ones to try.

Saved Captions

Organize your hashtags by different categories then insert them into your posts with one click.

Search for UGC by Caption

Search by hashtag to find and repost UGC or track your branded hashtags from within the Later app.

Instagram Hashtag Analytics

Find out which hashtags are bringing in the most engagement. See likes, comments, reach, and saves.

The #1 Hashtag Research Tool for Instagram

Why you should use our Instagram hashtag tools

PLAN & SCHEDULE

Schedule perfect posts in half the time

No more hopping between different apps. Create & edit content, get on-brand Instagram hashtag suggestions, and schedule posts to automatically publish whenever you want.

Hashtags for Instagram Growth

Extend your reach on Instagram

Finding the right followers has never been easier. Use Hashtag Suggestions to create and save new lists of hashtags to get your posts in front of more people.

PERFECT YOUR FEED

Keep your grid, posts, and captions looking fresh

Share perfectly captioned posts with an optimized first caption, or find stunning shareable content in just one search.

See which hashtags are working

Not all ‘tags are created equal. Our Instagram Analytics tool will tell you which ones are bringing in the most engagement. Compare hashtags side-by-side, or dive into detailed performance metrics.

Why people love Later Social’s Instagram hashtag tool

“Later’s hashtag tools are so simple. Adding a first comment barely adds a step to my process but it’s so invaluable. It helps improve the look and feel of my post and drives reach at the same time."

Chloe Pedersen

Art Director, Ranch & Coast Magazine

See Customer Stories

See what the right hashtags can do for your Instagram growth

Create a Later account and become a hashtag power-user.

How to Find Hashtags for Social Media + 13 Tools for Hashtag Research

Sharing is caring!

Finding the right – and most helpful – hashtags requires some knowledge about how to use them and which ones are good and which hashtags are useless. And the question of how to find the best hashtags for your purpose needs to be answered.

This post is about hashtag research and gives a variety of answers to the question of how to find the best hashtags for your social media!

Let’s start by clarifying some questions around hashtags.

Before you read on - we have various resources that show you exactly how to use social networks to gain massive traffic and leads. For instance, check out the following:

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a combination of a # symbol and a keyword or keyphrase. They are used to identify the topic of a post in social networks.

While you can use numbers in your keyphrase, special characters including ‘$’, ‘%’ and ‘ ‘ are not allowed.

A hashtag can be a popular keyword or phrase that many people use or it can be a specific hashtag invented by a brand, event, person for a purpose. For instance, sports stars often brand their own hashtag, make it popular, and then use it for merchandise. Or a brand can use a hashtag to brand all their own pins on Pinterest. On Twitter, hashtags are used to group together all posts from a Twitter chat.

Why should you even care about hashtags?

For most social networks updates with hashtags get more visibility AND engagement. For example, on Instagram, posts with hashtags get 12,6% more engagement.

Hashtags work as categorization and organization for the posts. People can discover posts via the hashtags – you have the chance to reach a new and larger audience through your hashtags. The right hashtags can help you discover the right audience: an interested and engaged audience.

Hashtags in social media posts also give a quick hint as to what the post is about. This makes it easier for people to grab the meaning of a post and react to it. Engagement for posts with hashtags increases.

Twitter : Hashtags are used to specify the topic of a tweet and group the tweets around one hashtag in one hashtag stream. Hashtags are also used for branding reasons and to specify tweets in a chat of conversation.

Hey, before you read on - we have in various FREE in-depth guides on similar topics that you can download. For this post, check out:

The limit of how many hashtags you can use in a tweet is the number of characters that you are allowed in a tweet. Best practice shows that 2 hashtags per tweet get the best results – more hashtags can hurt your success.

Pinterest : Hashtags on Pinterest are relatively new. Since fall 2017 Pinterest accepts hashtags in the pin descriptions. You can use many hashtags – as the character count allows. Hashtags are used to identify the topic of a pin and related topics. Hashtags are relevant if you want to rank in the smart feed for people that do not follow you but are interested in the topics of your tweets.

Instagram : Is the queen of social networks when it comes to hashtags. Up to 30 hashtags are accepted in the post description. Hashtags play an important role when you want to grow your Instagram account and find like-minded people.

On Instagram you can not only follow accounts you can also follow hashtags. Posts using this hashtag will then show up in your Instagram feed and you can decide if you want to follow the Instagrammer who posts with this hashtag.

If you search for a hashtag on Instagram you will also see a page of the most popular posts using this hashtag. If you manage to get your post into this lot for one of the more popular hashtags, you may have scored some huge exposure. But it is hard to get there and the question remains if this crowd is very targeted for your post.

Facebook : Hashtags turn keywords in clickable links to provide further information and posts around the hashtags topic. You can also use personal hashtags for brand campaigns or group all posts around an event or campaign together.

However, hashtags on Facebook never reached the popularity they have on other social networks.

LinkedIn : Are you even aware that you can and should use hashtags on LinkedIn ? I admit that I have only used hashtags for my LinkedIn articles which are already a couple of years old.

You can add hashtags to your daily updates and categorize your articles. You can also follow hashtags.

Here is more about how to use hashtags in the various social networks.

What makes a good hashtag – and which hashtags are not worth a dime?

There are very popular hashtags and then there are more niche hashtags. The popular hashtags promise a lot of reach, but is that reach something that you as an average social media user can leverage? More likely the answer is no.

The problem with the most popular hashtags is that they are usually not very specific – plus there are millions of people competing for the attention that these hashtags promise. In the end, these hashtags may or may not give you the exposure you are looking for and if people see your update, you cannot be sure if they really are interested in your post because they may have been looking for something totally different using the same hashtag. And just loosely interested people that find your post through this hashtag are highly unlikely to follow you.

There are top lists of hashtags out there but they rarely are very specific and you will have a hard time finding a hashtag that is related to your post. These lists are more of clickbait content than very useful.

Screenshot from Later

Which hashtags should you be using instead?

The answer is well-researched niche hashtags. These hashtags are not so competitive as the popular ones but the people following these hashtags or searching for them are highly likely to be interested in your post.

What is even better?

In social networks that only ask for 1 or 2 hashtags like Twitter, you should probably stick to the niche hashtags. But since most social networks allow you to add multiple hashtags, a combination of popular hashtags with niche hashtags are often your best bet.

If you want to leverage niche hashtags, you have to be careful. Niche hashtags will only show their unique power, if you do your homework and research well. If you are looking for success through niche hashtags, a quick guess will often not do the trick. It is well worth the effort to spend a few minutes on the question, how can you find hashtags that are the best possible selection for your social media updates.

In addition to just using an already existing hashtag, you can also use hashtags for branding or start a hashtag campaign for a popular topic. That means you research a hashtag that no one else is using and start using it for a conversation or posts around a topic. To make this successful, you need a topic that can become (very) popular and some way to give your hashtag an initial push.

Huge accounts can start hashtag campaigns by simply using these hashtags. Smaller accounts need a strategy to do it.

A popular German-based outdoor activity account on Instagram called @YouareanAdventureStory started a hashtag campaign for #übergangszeit which translated means time in between and relates to the time between spring and summer when temperatures are already warm but there is still a ton of snow you have to walk through in the mountains.

The girls from @youareanadventurestory asked people to tag them in their photos of the snowy trails and reshared the posts in their Instagram stories.

This campaign got both sides added exposure. Win-win!

Here are 13 Tools and Tactics to research (and find) the best hashtags for your social media posts:

1. Twitter Trends

Yes, I know, that I told you not to use (only) the most popular hashtags. Still, the Twitter trends are tailored to each Twitter user and they may be a good start to find hashtags for your current interests.

2. Use Search

In most social networks you can simply use the search and the autocomplete function to get some ideas for hashtags. Unfortunately on Twitter and Facebook you will not get any additional information for the hashtags as for instance, how often they are used.

On Instagram however, this hashtag search will already provide you with some information on how many posts use this hashtag plus which of the people you follow also follow this hashtag.

Instagram search also gives you some ideas for related hashtags.

3. Research your competition or niche

When you are actively engaging in social media in a specific niche, you will probably come across posts that contain a ton of hashtags. Some of these hashtags will not be a good match. But some hashtags that people from your niche are using are probably a good fit for may of your social media updates.

By learning about your niche and engaging with other social media users, you will expand your knowledge base of hashtags. This is an awesome and simple way to get inspiration on which hashtags people from your niche and target group are using or looking for.

While the search may be a good start to finding the best hashtags. tools can provide you with so much more information. So here is a selection of tools that can take your hashtag research one step further.

4. Hashtagify

Hashtagify provides you with hashtag suggestions for Twitter and Instagram.

For Twitter, you can simply type your tweet and get ideas for matching hashtags. Or you type a hashtag and get more related hashtag suggestions. You will get information on the language of the tweets that use this hashtag and the country the tweets originate from.

For Instagram you will also get some data around the hashtag like the popularity and the main influencers using this hashtag.

5. Trendsmap

If you are marketing local or looking for trends in a specific country, Trendsmap could be your best tool for Hashtag research.

Trendsmap puts hashtags on a map – as they trend around the world.

This is like Twitter’s trending topics on speed. With the free account you can play around with the map: zoom into specific countries or locations and see the local trends. Premium accounts allow you to find trending topics for a specific location , give you a trend history and you get a list of the top tweets. Premium features start at 25$/month.

6. Sked Social’s hashtag recommendation tool

Sked Social is basically a scheduling and publishing tool for Instagram that also includes scheduling features for Instagram stories and videos.

But SkedSocial also has a hashtag recommendation feature. When you schedule an update, SkedSocial will provide you with hashtag recommendations based on the hashtags you have already chosen. The more hashtags that you already added to your post, the more specific will the given suggestions become. The suggestions come with additional information like how popular the hashtag is and how beneficial its use for this post is expected to be.

Image Source SkedSocial

Sked Social starts at 25$/month.

7. Sprout Social’s Trends Report

Sprout Social is a social media management tool with heaps of features for all your social media accounts. Sprout social offers solutions for engagement, scheduling and analytics.

Sprout Social’s Analytics feature TrendsReport can also provide you with awesome hashtag suggestions based on your accounts and the interactions that your accounts have.

For Twitter, TrendsReport analyzes all incoming messages or your connected Twitter accounts and give you a list of topics, hashtags, and influencers in relation to your Twitter account’s activity. This way you know what is relevant and can engage and participate.

8. Display Purposes

Display Purpose is a rather simple and straight-forward tool to expand your hashtags and find more hashtag ideas. You simply type in a hashtag that comes to your mind and Display Purpose gives you a list of hashtag suggestions you can choose from.

Hovering your mouse over one of the list items will give you some minimal data on the relevancy of the suggested hashtag for your query.

9. Hashtag Expert

Many people are using social media from mobile. Let’s take a look at a mobile app for hashtag research. Hashtag Expert is a quick app to help you find related hashtags to copy and paste into your Instagram post on the go.

10. Later’s Hashtag Suggestion feature

Later is another scheduling tool for Instagram. The hashtag suggestion feature work similar to the one we already saw from Sked Social.

You put a post caption into Later add some hashtags – and Later will give you a list of ideas for more hashtags that may fit your post. This a very easy to use right at the time when you create your post.

Image Source: Later

11. All Hashtag

AllHashtag is another quick and easy hashtag suggestion tool. You type a keyword and AllHashtag provides you with a list of hashtag suggestions.

AllHashtag has another feature for hashtags that you may want to try: Hashtags analytics.

Analytics provide you with a ranking for your hashtag, a number of times it was used plus a number of hashtags that are similar to this one.

I recommend you play around with this feature a little to get a feeling of what the numbers mean and how keywords compare to others.

12. AutoHash

AutoHash is a fun Smartphone App that analyzes images and gives you hashtag suggestions based on what it finds on your images. You will have to play around with your images and see if the suggestions for your type of photos will provide you ideas for relevant hashtags.

Image Source: SkedSocial

It also allows you to save your favorite hashtags for easier reuse and offers a counter for hashtags to make it easier to decide if you should add some more hashtags to your posts.

13. RiteTag

RiteTag is another tool that focuses on providing you with the best hashtags for your social media updates. It can analyze short texts and give you ideas for hashtags – it can also analyze your images and give you hashtag ideas based on your images.

RiteTag comes with a 7-day free trial – and 49$/year after that.

Final words on how to find hashtags

I know how easy it is to fall for the quick solution and just type the couple of hashtags that first come to my mind when creating a new social media update.

But there is so much more power in hashtags that you are missing if you do not invest a tiny amount of work in your hashtag research.

Hashtags have tremendous power – if you know how to find the powerful hashtags that can change your social media fate.

You can be banned from using the wrong hashtags – and your social media success can multiply through your hashtags. It is up to you which of the two it is going to be.

Join our  free Email Course to learn how to start your social media marketing journey:

All the basics in 4 Days, 4 Emails

Susanna Gebauer

• Imprint/Impressum
• Privacy Policy
• Podcast – Marketing in Minutes
• Get a Coaching Call
• Courses and Books

How To Do Hashtag Research

Hashtags are a great way to reach out to new audiences and gain new relevant followers for your social media account. When properly researched and used well, they can be an extremely effective method of increasing your visibility on social media. However when used incorrectly, the results can have a negative effect on your social media presence and deter potential followers.

Hashtags (as they have now come to be known) actually pre-date Twitter and modern social media. Though the term “hashtag” was popularised on Twitter, the # symbol has been used for over two decades for similar purposes of socialising and sharing information online. And you can read more about the history and evolution of the hashtag here , if you’re really interested…

How To Do Hashtag Research for Social Media

There are, as with everything online, some unspoken “Twitter-etiquette” rules to abide by if you are looking to make a positive impression on Twitter.

Hashtag Research Tip:

Like the awkward new person at a party, don’t just jump in on a conversation and start talking about yourself.

Join in with the conversation!

The “How To Do Hashtag Research” process is usually this:

• Start with a root or core keyword as a hashtag.
• Generate more keyword / hashtag ideas.
• Understand each hashtag’s usage and popularity.
• Organise them into a spreadsheet.
• Structure a social media content strategy from your research.

How To Find Hashtags

Though hashtags are essentially keywords for social media, there is a world of difference between social media keyword research and research for keywords intended for search engines such as Google or Bing. Just the same as Apple’s App Store keyword research  and Google Play keyword research are two entirely different games also!

So how do you find hashtags for Twitter? Well, there are literally hashtags for everything. And their usage can differ depending on the social media platform. So although essentially this guide is loosely aimed at Twitter, there are keyword research tips that cross over to Instagram, Google+, etc, but each platform will require its own insights.

First of all, no matter what the social media channel, you need to take a good hard look at the sort of content that you will be putting out and who its intended audience is. Find popular accounts similar to yours, in regards to audience and content, and start making a note of the hashtags that they commonly use. Add to this list all of the obvious root or core keywords that can be used as hashtags.

For the sake of using a rather boring example, let’s start with something really broad that we’re interested in: #seo . It doesn’t get broader than that.

By searching for #seo on Tagboard , we can gather a little bit of immediate data such as: the trend of the hashtag’s use, the general sentiment expressed using the hashtag, related hashtags usually used in conjunction with #seo and an average posts per minute using that hashtag. As well as a stream of various social media platforms using the hashtag so you can observe how the hashtag is being used in real time.

Hashtag research can be a great way to, not only jump in on existing hashtags and trends but, see whether your hashtag is already in popular use before you unleash it as part of your upcoming social campaign!

Hmm…. 11 posts a minute. Is your tweet worth competing with that, or will you be invisible amongst the crowd? 11 posts a minute, but how many people are actually going to be searching for that hashtag during that time? It’s kind of like 11 people screaming at the top of their lungs in the vacuum of space where they can’t be heard. Trends on the other hand…. but we’ll get to that later.

Nevertheless, you want to jot down any relevant hashtag and we can worry about prioritising them later.

Similarly, Hashtagify allows you to search for a keyword and see a spider diagram of related keywords. (You’re going to want to get these down in your list.) Hovering over each keyword “bubble” gives you a popularity score and correlation percentage from your initial hashtag in the centre position. The bigger the bubble, the more popular the hashtag is. If this branch visualisation isn’t particularly helpful to you, Hashtagify also features a Table Mode displaying the same data, which you can then sort by Popularity, Correlation, Weekly Trend and Monthly Trend:

And even view the all-time top 6 influencers for that hashtag for further investigation:

And you will also be able to see the “Hashtag Wall” for the hashtag, displaying a grid of the hashtag in recent use across various social media platforms.

Make sure you know how the hashtags are being used by users! Think how annoying it is in real life when you’re having a conversation with someone, and someone else jumps in talking about something completely irrelevant!

Another amazing tool for finding hashtags to use on Twitter is Hashtag Scout . It’s undoubtedly a treasure trove of hashtags waiting to be found….

All you have to do is type in a hashtag, and it will display a  super long list of other hashtags related to your original search. (And I mean super long.) It truly is a remarkable source of hashtag inspiration. If you click through to any hashtag you see displayed, let’s just click on #seo for example, you can see the Estimated Usage Volume per day and per month. Along with the usual related hashtags from the last 164 hours and Recent Popular Tweets Using #seo below.

These are real, measurable figures that you should be making note of for the next step in your keyword research…

Your Wonderful Hashtag Spreadsheet

By now you should have a long list of all sorts of weird and wonderful keywords. In fact, it might even be an overwhelming amount that has your head spinning in your hands wondering what to do with them all.

But before you break down into tears, let’s sort that bad boy out and see what we can actually use. You might find that about 75% of them are absolutely useless, but we need to sift through the junk to find the goodies worth keeping. Remember that once all of your hashtags and data are input into your spreadsheet, you can keep coming back later on to add to it and sort all of them by daily volume, monthly volume, or just alphabetically as you please.

Spreadsheet columns can be sorted into:

• Daily Volume
• Monthly Volume
• Description
• Sentiment (optional)

Some hashtags aren’t immediately obvious as to the expected content, so having a description column can be real useful so that you don’t forget. What a faux pas it would be to accidentally tweet a picture of a loaf of bread to #kittyloafmonday !

If you take a moment to research into each individual hashtag, you can quickly find Twitter communities that you didn’t even know existed. Like did you know that there is a different topic of “cat discussion” every day of the week?

• Monday: #kittyloafmonday
• Tuesday: #tunatuesday
• Wednesday: #whiskerswednesday
• Thursday: #fluffyfursday
• Friday: #jellybellyfriday
• Saturday: #caturday
• Sunday: #catboxsunday

Each one of those is a new and exciting opportunity every day to target cat lovers actively participating in cat discussion!

Constructing Your Hashtag Strategy

So what do you do once you have your extensive collection of hashtags? How do you know which ones to use and when? What ever happened to the spontaneity of social media?

Now it’s time to structure a social media content strategy from your hashtag research.

Avoid using more than 3 hashtags in a Tweet.

1-2 has proven to be best and case studies have shown that it could improve the Tweet’s engagement by 200%!

When To Use Hashtags

Using Hashtags.org , you can see a 24 hour trend graph of estimated Tweets per hour, based on a sample of 1%. This allows you to see when the best times are to use a hashtag. This is great news for your social media content scheduling, but you need to make sure that you don’t just neglect your social media accounts and let your scheduler do all the hard work. Yes, schedule Tweets in advance based on your hashtag research and social strategy, but keep one eye on your account to ensure that you don’t miss out on any opportunities that may spontaneously present themselves to you. This is a huge part of Twitter, and if you blink for a second you could miss out on a chance to get thousands of impressions and all of the followers that come with that.

What About Twitter Trends?

You can set Twitter to display location-based Trends (by selecting a a country or city) or Tailored Trends. How do Tailored Trends on Twitter work? Twitter displays Trends algorithmically by your current location and who you follow for a more personalised display of Trends that you are likely to be interested in.

It takes just a couple of clicks to switch back and forth between Tailored and Location-based Trends, so you could alternate throughout the day to see whether there are any Trends that you could make us of.

The argument against participating in Twitter Trends is that the more popular the hashtag or keywords, the quicker your Tweet will get pushed out of the live Twitter stream. But there’s also a higher chance of higher impressions. So it’s a worthy gamble for an immediate boost in exposure and if it’s a particularly good Tweet, you might experience a sudden influx in Favourites and ReTweets and maybe even new Followers. But it should be said that Twitter users browsing Trends tend to just be on a bit of scroll mission, so your Tweet could just get completely ignored.

Experiment!

Luck and timing can play a HUGE part in your success. You win some; you lose some. See what works.

If you target less popular hashtags, yes, you might be visible for that query for a longer duration, but there will also be less people searching that hashtag. Kind of like long tail vs short tail keyword targeting in SEO. You might rank really well for a really specific long tail search term, but have less people searching for those terms, or rank on 3rd page of Google for a short tail term that delivers tonnes of traffic due to the sheer number of searches it receives. With Twitter Trends, even though you may only get a tiny fraction of the Trend traffic, your Tweet may generate a huge amount of engagement.

Local Hashtags for your Local Audience

If you have a local business, obviously your audience is ideally going to be those within your local area. So how do you target these accounts on Twitter? First of all, you’ll want to be following and networking with other local Twitter accounts, be they local businesses or just Twitter users with local influence. Secondly, you need to know what people in the local area are talking about on Twitter so that you can join in the conversation and just be present. And how do you do that?

Introducing Trends Map ….

Trends Map enables you to restrict your hashtag targeting to a local geographic area and zoom in and out to find popular and trending hashtags within local areas.

By referring to your hashtag spreadsheet whenever you are writing or scheduling Tweets, you can methodically select the most appropriate hashtag/s to use based on time of posting and audience. Or even plan your social content around trending topics or popular hashtags! It just takes a little creativity and imagination, which unfortunately cannot be taught in any tutorial. Every social account is different. I’ve hopefully given you the tools and the insight; it’s now up to you what you do with it. Good luck!

Very informative. Overuse or improper use of hash tags is one thing that really gets on my nerves. Working in Content Marketing it is something that we come across a lot, and something people should take more time to learn the ins and outs of

Thanks for submitting this to the Blogging + Business Collective. All submissions get pinned to Pinterest. Have a great Sunday!

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How to Unwind by Doing Mindful Yard Work (The Science of Happiness Podcast)

Everyday activities, such as cleaning and gardening, can be sources of joy and opportunities for mindfulness. this week, our guest shares his experience practicing mindful sweeping on the temple stairs in kyoto, japan with shoukei matsumoto, a buddhist monk..

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode .  This episode is sponsored by Tianren Culture, whose vision is “One Health, One Wellness.” Tianren Culture is a next-generation social platform that acts as a catalyst to foster positive global values and lifestyles.

Episode summary :

Many of us see yard work as a chore. But what if we shift our perspective and instead see it  as an opportunity to practice mindfulness? This week on The Science of Happiness, our guest  shares his experience of sweeping the steps of a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, and the mindfulness and mental processes involved in the practice. Then, we hear from Shoukei Matsumoto, a Buddhist monk and author, about the practice of cleaning as a form of mindfulness.

Practice: The next time you’re tending to your garden, picking up trash on your sidewalk, watering the plants, or doing other chores, spend a few minutes practicing mindfulness by slowing down and really being present with the activity and your own bodies movements while you do it. 

Today’s guests:

Matt Heron is a Canadian who has been living and working in Japan for five years.

Shoukei Matsumoto is a Buddhist monk and cleaning enthusiast in Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of “A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind,” which has been translated into 18 languages, including English 

• Follow Shoukei on instagram: https://tinyurl.com/4e2jk7xt
• Follow Shoukei on Linkedin: https://tinyurl.com/48xkr9ew
• Learn more about Interbeing: https://www.interbeing.co.jp/en
• Read “A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind” : https://tinyurl.com/7u3zhvcz

More episodes like this one:

How to Make Work More Satisfying: https://tinyurl.com/3fa925yf Why We Should Seek Beauty in the Everyday Life: https://tinyurl.com/26dskv38

Related Happiness Breaks (a short, guided practice by The Science of Happiness) 

Contemplating Our Interdependence With Nature, With Dekila Chungyalpa: https://tinyurl.com/erz2f5de Happiness Break: How to Be in Harmony in Nature—Wherever You Are, With Yuria Celidwen: https://tinyurl.com/ynxeeb7a

Tell us about your mindful gardening experiences! Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness!

Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Shuka Kalantari:  This episode is sponsored by Tianren Culture, whose vision is “One Health, One Wellness.”

Dacher Keltner Hi, I'm Dacher Keltner, and this is The Science of Happiness podcast. As a lot of you know, we're based out of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and we've been sharing our episodes on Greater Good's social media platforms. But now, we have our own Science of Happiness Instagram, and we'd love for you to follow us. You can find us at @ScienceofHappinessPod , all one word. We're going to go behind the scenes of our episodes, and share how to do the practices we talk about on the show. The first 100 followers will be included in a raffle to win a signed copy of my newest book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. That's, “Science of Happiness p-o-d” on Instagram. We also have a link in our show notes. Enjoy this week’s episode.

Matt Heron When I was living in Canada, I felt like I didn't necessarily have that much stress in my life. And now that I'm here in Japan, that's not the case for various reasons. I'm teaching English and that's every evening, usually starting at five, maybe finishing at nine or 10, so that's a little stressful 'cause it takes away from a lot of the time I would generally spend at home with my wife. And, I now own six properties, all of which are these abandoned old houses that require a lot of renovation work. And, I'm trying to do– myself.   I feel very stressed out a lot of the time. It feels like it's, you know, 24 hours a day. And occasionally I find myself not necessarily lashing out at other people, but not being as happy as I want to be, or as open in the moment as I want to be. 

Dacher Keltner Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I’m Dacher Keltner. Feeling overworked and unable to show up for our loved ones in the ways we want to – or to show up for ourselves, for that matter – is something so many of us struggle with. But getting outside and plugging into the natural world can really help to settle our minds, ease our nerves, and allow us to feel that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves. In fact, studies show that just getting outdoors a bit reduces our tendency to ruminate, reduces our feelings of anxiety and depression, and we also know that just getting outdoors and enjoying nature increases our emotional well being and our sense of purpose and meaning in life.  In celebration of summer, our next few episodes of the Science of Happiness will be about things we can do outside to make us feel good on the inside. We'll travel to the boroughs of New York City, the deep ocean waters of South Africa, and for our show this week, we're visiting Japan, exploring a way to feel good to tap into nature through a Buddhist tradition, the practice of caring for the temple grounds. In this case, sweeping leaves from some temple steps in Kyoto. It's a practice that any of us can do wherever we are, just find some place outdoors to pick up a little bit, whether that means weeding the garden or picking up the sidewalk near our homes. For today's show, we're going to hear from my friend Shoukei Matsumoto, a Buddhist punk.  

Shoukei Matsumoto We tend to think that to cultivate our mindfulness, we need to practice some specific special set of meditation, but in reality, we can turn every single moment. In our daily life into mindful practice.  

Dacher Keltner we'll also hear from Matt Heron, a Canadian living in Kyoto, who's struggling like many of us with a hefty workload.  He shares how this sweeping practice went for him. And we'll also learn about the scientific findings that explain how practices like this, can have such a deep impact on our minds and bodies. All that, after this short break. 

Dacher Keltner Welcome to the Science of Happiness, I'm Dacher Keltner. Today we're exploring an ancient but enduring contemplative technique, caring for a garden. In this case, by clearing leaves from the steps of a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. This might sound like a lot of yard work to you, and it absolutely is, but that doesn't mean that there isn't wisdom in finding meaning in mindfully working. Besides cultivating mindfulness, which supports us in so many ways, there's a robust literature on both the benefits of gardening, which has been shown to help us feel happier or relaxed, less anxious and depressed, and more generally in spending time in nature. Our guest today is Matt Herron, a Canadian who's lived in Japan for the last five years. Matt joined my friend Shoukei Matsumoto, a Buddhist monk, to learn about the Buddhist principles behind sweeping the temple steps. And, we’ll hear some moments of their time together. Here’s part of our conversation.

Dacher Keltner So I want to get a sense of what it was like the day, or really the morning you went to the with temple with Shoukei, as you sort of pulled away from the stressful days and what it was like for you.

Matt Heron Yeah, it was very nice actually.  But as I was walking, it's funny, we talked about it a little bit once I got there. I had emails coming in and customers sending me messages that were  Causing some frustration, I suppose. I'm texting a customer, or like messaging a customer who keeps asking the same question over and over. So I'm like, okay, I think I will, whatever we're doing today will probably be a good time to do it.  

Dacher Keltner What was it like as you started your conversation and practice with him?  

Matt Heron He had a very calm demeanor about him, which was very nice. 

Shoukei Matsumoto Good morning. Welcome to Hōnen-in Temple in Kyoto.  

Matt Heron So, initially we went to the back of the temple and pulled out some bamboo brooms. And some other tools we would have needed for the cleaning. With probably dozens, if not a hundred, very small branches. Also from bamboo, I think. So it's a very stiff broom. Somewhat like an old witch's broom, but a Japanese version. 

Shoukei Matsumoto I don't know how. How it is called in English, but it's Chiritori in Japanese. 

Matt Heron Ah, a very large dustpan.  

Shoukei Matsumoto Dustpan, ok. You bring, thank you.  

Matt Heron So when we were starting off, heading towards the steps, we were walking down a stone path that was lined with trees and moss on the sides.  So, it's a really beautiful old temple grounds actually, so it's really well kept. There's lots of  relatively large, white, traditional buildings, and then a  small pebble path that leads through. What seems to be like a small forest on the mountainside.  It was very green and lush with these gray steps in the middle. It was really beautiful. 

Dacher Keltner Walk me through exactly what you did with Shoukei with this sweeping practice. 

Matt Heron  Sure. Once we got to the stairs he kind of explained that these are the stairs we're going to be cleaning and while we're sweeping them  it doesn't need to be perfect and that the cleaning process is not about doing it perfectly. 

Shoukei Matsumoto You do half  the left side. I do right but uh yeah it's not competition, so okay.

Matt Heron  Sounds good.

Shoukei Matsumoto All right You're sweeping the leaves, you're also sweeping your inner noise in your mind. 

Matt Heron  It's interesting. So for me, there's,  it comes in waves as I'm doing this sweeping. So we're sweeping from the sides into the middle. And when I do the sides, I feel much more calm because I can do large sweeping motions. It's flowing a little easier. As we get into the middle, all the leaves start falling into the cracks of the stones, and then I have to start sweeping a little more aggressively to get them out. So it's an interesting ebb and flow. The start is very smooth and, oh, this is very nice and relaxing. And then I get to the middle and it's like, okay, I need to be a little more aggressive here and then I can go back to the nice, relaxing part. It was interesting. We had actually talked about how, for me, it reminded me of living in Canada. So, in Canada, I would do a lot of shoveling of snow, and it was similar in the sense that if you do it early enough and the snow is light and fluffy, you can do large shoveling motions, and as much as it's a more aggressive sound, I find it somewhat calming, but when it's icy and the snow is heavy, you're doing these short, aggressive chipping motions. And that is not so relaxing and it can be frustrating. So this was somewhat reminiscent of that.  

Dacher Keltner All right, Matt, I'm going to push on this. You know, it sounds like parts of the exercise were frustrating those stacks of leaves in the middle of the steps and i'm just curious at that moment, you know what your attitude was towards the activity and your frustration.  

Matt Heron I think what I was taking away from it is that the whole idea of this mindfulness and, I guess, and Shoukei said interbeing, is, it's likely a skill more than it is simply something you can turn on and turn off. I assume if I was better with the broom. Assuming anyone who does this more often is a little less, uh,  aggravated by the cracks than I am.  

Shoukei Matsumoto I think cleaning is a good way to leave  our goal oriented mindset or mindset for efficiency.  So just enjoy without thinking of how I can do this better. Just become broom.

Matt Heron Okay.  

Shoukei Matsumoto Yeah, anyway, we can enjoy.  

Matt Heron Shoukei mentioned that you just need to be the broom and don't worry about it so much, and I certainly did get a little better at it by the time we got to the bottom of the steps, but I think, going forward, it's something that I need to be mindful of, that the whole idea of mindfulness is a skill I'll need to work on, and I don't think doing any particular activity is going to change anything necessarily. It's a matter of consistently keeping this idea in mind and practicing this mindset, regardless of the activity. And I think that's a big thing that I took away is that if I have a goal in mind as far as mindset goes, or dealing with stresses, it's something that I need to work on little by little, and it's a skill that I'll develop and hopefully, eventually, have a lot more control over. 

Shoukei Matsumoto So, you may think cleaning is about perfectionism, so you need to clean 100%, but it's not. I'd say it's a practice to leave from perfectionism. So we cannot complete cleaning. There is no 100 percent cleanliness, right? Right after cleaning, the leaves start falling. So that's the nature.  

Matt Heron I mean, even as we're talking now, I've seen maybe three leaves fall on the steps that we just spent however long cleaning. But, I think Shoukei is right that it'll never be clean and done. There will always be more to do. 

Dacher Keltner That's good to hear. In a study in South Korea,  they had these adults who had mild depression and anxiety and they did a 15 week gardening program and Twice weekly they did gardening activities and over that time their symptoms of depression and anxiety Improved or lessened and I'm just curious how you feel this practice was showcase sweeping the steps affected all the stresses that you've reported on of you know, worrying about things sort of mind focused on the phone if you notice any changes.  

Matt Heron Being able to go into the temple and hear the birds chirping, be in the trees, have the light rays coming through them was really nice and created a bit of a disconnect from all the stresses of normal life. Being away from all of my normal stuff, certainly I did feel some relaxation and some relief from all those stresses. Um, but I, I wonder part of it though is Sweeping is not typically a relaxing activity for me if I'm doing it, but I wonder if a lot of that sort of enjoyment and Calmness that came out of it was because I was doing it with Shoukei. I wonder if I had personally done it myself If it would have been more of a goal oriented exercise where I thought, oh, okay I need to clean these steps and I need to get this done and I would have been, you know, counting down the sweeps until I was finished. Whereas with Shoukei, it was, it wasn't about sweeping the steps. It was about doing the activity and enjoying the atmosphere versus  the actual activity of sweeping. And part of it, I even wonder is if it needed to be Shoukei. I think if I was doing it with anyone, maybe this is just me personally, but I think doing the activity with someone else, whether it was gardening or sweeping or hiking, can change the activity from something that is goal driven and is about kind of the purpose of the activity to time spent enjoying what you're doing. Personally, when I'm in nature and I can see the light, I can feel the wind, I can hear the birds. There's nothing there putting pressure on me. I'm just existing in that space surrounded by trees, birds, water, whatever have you. And I feel more open. I think the biggest thing I'm going to take away from this whole experience is that I will try to make more of a conscious effort to get into nature more. You can feel more connected with nature, you can feel more open and more fresh, and it's a nice refresher from normal life and normal stresses, and then you can go back into normal life again and perhaps feel a little bit cleaner, if you will.  

Dacher Keltner Well, Matt, thank you so much for doing this unusual practice with Shoukei and it's been a wonderful conversation.

Matt Heron Thank you so much. I enjoyed the whole experience. 

Shoukei Matsumoto Cleaning outdoor is a great opportunity to come to understand that we are part of the nature.  

Dacher Keltner Up next, my conversation with Shoukei. 

Dacher Keltner Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner.  We've been talking about practicing mindfulness in nature by cleaning up a little outdoors. It's something that most of us can do wherever we are. Maybe it's raking leaves in the yard or picking up trash at a park. Our guests for today's show had the privilege of visiting a beautiful Buddhist temple on a hillside in Kyoto to sweep the temple steps. We're now joined by the Buddhist monk who guided him through that sweeping practice. My friend, Shoukei Matsumoto. Shoukei has been a monk for more than 20 years and is the author of the book,$ “A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind.” Shoukei, thanks for being in conversation. 

Shoukei Matsumoto Hi, Dacher. Very wonderful to see you here. Thank you. 

Dacher Keltner I think you've been one of the best illustrations of something I've always gleaned from Buddhism, which is just this lovely space. the possibility of mindfulness or enlightenment or awareness just in every aspect of our behavior.You teach people that cleaning and sweeping becomes a form of contemplation. How is this possible? 

Shoukei Matsumoto We tend to think that to cultivate our mindfulness, we need to practice some specific special set of meditation or some sort of practice in our time but in reality, we can turn every single moment in our daily life into mindful practice. So to cultivate mindfulness what is important is keeping practice, practicing, right. Sometimes your mind might be occupied with issues you're facing at or emotions of anger or whatever. Compared to the meditation in silence, in stillness, cleaning practice is meditation in motion. So, at least you need to be aware of your physical motion, otherwise, you cannot, you know, continue cleaning, right? So, if you're occupied with some emotion or thought, try to concentrate on your emotion in cleaning, so that it reduces your attachment to the issue or problem you are facing.  

Dacher Keltner We know from a lot of research that, you know, when you practice meditation outdoors, there's just greater reductions in stress. A recent study from the UK, other research finds people feel more connected to nature, which is so important today.  How would you teach us about the deepening of a meditative practice by doing it outdoors? What does it give to us?  

Shoukei Matsumoto So basically, I think that the role of Buddhism, the role of Mahayana Buddhism is cultivating your sense of feeling interbeingness in this world. So, the great Mahayana Buddhist, the Thich Nhat Hanh, said, human being is interbeing. Everyone is interconnected, interdependent. Everything is related, each other. So, cleaning outdoor is very, very powerful experience for us to remember that we are interbeing, interconnected.  So we can feel the wind, we can see the change of the season and touch the soil and the microbes in the soil. And so we are beyond ourselves, right?  

Dacher Keltner Shoukei, I wanted to ask you about something you wrote in your book about communing with nature. And first you write that it gives us richness to our minds. And that's a old idea, a very deep idea, you know. In indigenous traditions and Ralph Waldo Emerson writing, we learned some of our most important ethical ideas in being with nature. But then you go on to say that, you know, examine nature and then examine yourself through the lens of nature. And that really struck me. You know, there's recent research coming out of the UK showing when students do mindfulness practices outdoors in nature, they do indeed become more reflective. So I'm curious what your thinking is about examining yourself through the lens of nature. 

Shoukei Matsumoto Yeah.So the cleaning garden is my favorite cleaning. When you clean outdoor, you examine the nature, but not only that, you become nature. Right? So, nature is not something outside of yourself, but you are part of the nature. And in this consumerism, we tend to be obsessed with being very valuable, value adding existence as a producer or as a consumer, but we could be neither consumer nor producer. We could be decomposer. So that's the great learning in cleaning practice. 

Dacher Keltner It's a whole shift in identity. It's not a subject object relationship in some way. It's right, right. A process view of what we do out in the world. 

Shoukei Matsumoto Right. Right. Right.  

Dacher Keltner This has been such a rich conversation, Shoukei. Thank you so much for joining us on the science of happiness and Showing our guests Matt Herr on how to properly sweep the temple steps.

Shoukei Matsumoto Yeah, thank you so much. 

Dacher Keltner Next time on The Science of Happiness, we're staying outdoors, except instead of Japanese temples, our guest explores new places he's never seen before in New York City, where he lives.  

Aaron Heller On days when you explore more, you go to new places, you tend to report feeling happier, and that's partially driven by this novelty bonus that's intrinsic in people's brains. 

Dacher Keltner We travel through the boroughs of New York and learn why visiting new places without traveling far can make us happier. Thanks for joining us on the Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. A special thanks to our research assistants and my former Science of Happiness students, Dasha Zerboni and Selina Bilal. Our associate producer is Aisha Wallace-Palomares. Our sound designer is Jenny Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our producer is Haley Gray. Our podcast's executive producer is Shuka Kalantari.

Other Episodes

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Vet Information Before Making a Decision

• Alex Edmans

Four questions to ask when you’re considering the evidence.

The daily decisions modern leaders face are increasingly complex. But executives have a tool to combat these challenges – information. At the click of a mouse or the press of a thumb, they can call up cutting edge research on virtually any topic. With so much information available, how do we know what to trust? What executives need is a simple taxonomy of misinformation so they know what to look out for. Drawing on the tools of social science research we can categorize misinformation into four missteps. This framework can be useful to leaders of all kinds who need to ask better questions to manage their own information onslaughts.

The challenges facing business leaders have never been greater. Regular decisions are increasingly complex, given inflation, trade tensions, and political uncertainty. Human capital issues now include diversity, equity and inclusion, mental health, and upskilling for the fourth industrial revolution. Environmental, social and governance concerns can no longer be delegated to a corporate social responsibility department; they’re the duty of the C-suite. Artificial intelligence brings myriad new opportunities, but also multiple new threats.

• Alex Edmans is a Professor of Finance at London Business School, where he specializes in corporate finance, behavioral finance, and corporate social responsibility. He earned his BA from Oxford University and his Ph.D. from MIT, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He is the author of May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About It (Penguin Random House, 2024).

Partner Center

How Do Rate Cuts Affect Housing Affordability?

Housing affordability has deteriorated since the start of the pandemic. Would Fed rate cuts improve the outlook for homebuyers? In this post, I examine the potential connection between policy rates and housing affordability.

First, we'll look at how housing affordability has changed in the past few years. One measurement we can use is the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Housing Affordability Index (HAI) , in which higher scores indicate more affordable housing. The HAI has averaged 131.0 since 2020, compared to an average of 169.9 in the decade before the pandemic.

Similarly, although renting remains more affordable than owning, affordability for renters has also deteriorated: An index of rental affordability constructed to match the HAI 1 has fallen by more than 15 percent since 2020, averaging 177.6 compared to an average of 211.4 the decade before the pandemic. Figure 1 below shows these indexes, along with their average (which I refer to as the Total HAI), weighted by the share of owner-occupied versus renter-occupied housing units.

Figure 1: Renter, Homebuyer and Total Housing Affordability Indexes

Source: Authors calculations using Census Bureau and National Association of Realtors data via Haver Analytics

Our next step is to examine potential connections between policy rates and housing affordability. In Figure 2 below, we display the Total HAI alongside the fed funds rate. There appears to be a link between the two, with the correlation between the two series equal to -0.5 from the fourth quarter of 1993 through the first quarter of 2024, indicating that higher policy rates are associated with less affordable housing.

Figure 2: Housing Affordability Index Versus the Federal Funds Rate

Source: Author’s calculations and Federal Reserve Board via Haver Analytics

While Figure 2 suggests that affordability would increase as rates fall, the relationship between the two series is more complicated in the near term. We start by looking at the calculation of the HAI. The homebuying component of the Total HAI is based on the median price of existing single-family homes sold and assumes homebuyers take out mortgages with an 80 percent loan-to-value ratio, using the average effective mortgage rate on loans closed. The HAI compares the monthly payments for such a mortgage against median monthly household income. The HAI is equal to 100 times the ratio of median family income to qualifying income (the income needed to qualify for a loan with the described characteristics). Qualifying income is assumed to be four times the monthly mortgage payment. In other words, the mortgage payment should not exceed 25 percent of monthly household income.

All else equal, lower interest rates would lower the monthly mortgage payment and lead to a higher value of the HAI and greater affordability. That said, it's important to keep in mind that not all changes in the fed funds rate guarantee a move in the same direction in mortgage rates. Furthermore, with lower interest rates, homebuying demand would also rise in the near term, leading to an increase in home prices. Higher home prices raise the level of income needed to qualify for a mortgage, lowering the HAI.

Prior research has shown that monetary policy shocks can have substantial impacts on housing demand. In a 2019 paper, Daniel Dias and João Duarte find that, in data from 1983 through 2017, contractionary monetary policy shocks (such as unexpectedly higher interest rates) are associated with lower homeownership rates and increased housing rents as people are driven from homebuying toward the rental market. In a FEDS Note published in May, Dias and Duarte show that monetary policy shocks can account for about 30 percent of variation in the U.S. homeownership rate as well as 30 percent of long-run variation in house price growth, demonstrating that monetary policy shocks are as important for homeownership as they are for CPI inflation.

It is likely that demand would rise relative to supply in response to lower rates in the near term because of the time needed to deliver housing supply to the market. While homebuyers might be quick to respond to lower mortgage rates, it takes time to build new housing supply. Figure 3 below shows the average length of time (in months) that a new housing project takes to get from the permit stage to the start of construction, as well as the average length of time needed to get from start to completion. Both series have reached a record high in data that extend through the 1970s.

Figure 3: Average Time From Permit to Start and From Start to Completion

Source: Census Bureau via Haver Analytics

Meanwhile, the inventory of existing homes for sale has remained below pre-pandemic levels: According to the NAR, months' supply of existing homes was 3.5 in April 2024, compared to a 2015-2019 average of 4.2 months. Existing homeowners — particularly those who secured low mortgage rates before the pandemic — have been reluctant to move and trade in their low-rate mortgages for the higher rates prevailing today, making them "locked-in" to low mortgage rates.

Figure 4 below shows that the effective mortgage rate being paid by homeowners was 3.8 percent in March 2024, compared to the 7.4 percent average rate on new mortgages that month. In the near term, rate cuts (which tend to occur in quarter-point increments) would do little to dissolve that lock-in effect. Even if these homeowners were to put their properties up for sale, they would still need someplace to live, becoming buyers themselves and perhaps offsetting their own positive impact on supply.

Figure 4: Current 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Versus Effective Mortgage Rates

Source: Wall Street Journal and Bureau of Economic Analysis via Haver Analytics

Considering these competing effects, how should we interpret the strong correlation between low rates and better affordability seen in Figure 1? As any good economics student knows, correlation is not causation. What looks like a strong relationship between the two variables could be a side effect of both monetary policy and housing prices responding to overall economic conditions, for instance.

To see the causal effect of monetary policy on housing affordability, we (like Dias and Duarte) need to exploit monetary policy shocks: episodes where monetary policy movements are independent of changes in current and anticipated economic activity. Economists have studied various methods to identify such shocks, including in the 2004 paper, " A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications " by Christina Romer and David Romer and the 2020 paper, " Deconstructing Monetary Policy Surprises — The Role of Information Shocks " by Marek Jarociński and Peter Karadi.

In Figure 5 below, I plot the response of the Total HAI to a 1 percent monetary policy shock as measured by the 2004 Romer and Romer paper and updated by the 2020 paper, " Financial Dampening " by Johannes Wieland and Mu-Jeung Yang. The figure shows an impulse response function estimated by local projections using quarterly data from the first quarter of 1993 through the fourth quarter of 2007.

Figure 5: Response of Total Housing Affordability Index to a 1% Monetary Policy Shock

Source: Author’s calculations using Census Bureau and National Association of Realtors data via Haver Analytics and Wieland and Yang (2020) data via OpenICPSR

The figure shows that, within the first 2 1/2 years after a monetary policy shock, there is no statistically significant effect on total housing affordability. This suggests that trying to unconventionally leverage the Fed's interest rate policy to improve near-term housing affordability would likely be ineffective. Instead, advocates for housing affordability should be rooting for the Fed to be successful in its objectives of broad price stability and full employment, the underlying conditions that support the higher incomes, stable pricing environment and lower interest rates that make housing more affordable.

I constructed the rent affordability measure by first computing the affordable income threshold, or the level of income for which the median asking rent on vacant for-rent housing units nationwide (as reported by the Census Bureau) represents exactly 30 percent of annual income. Then, I set the rent affordability index equal to 100 times the ratio of median family income to the affordable income threshold.

Views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond or the Federal Reserve System.

Phone Icon Contact Us

Juneteenth: What to know about the historical celebration that's now a federal holiday

On june 19, 1865 slaves in galveston, texas were given the news that they were freed by president abraham lincoln. now, the day is a holiday that celebrates the "second independence day" in america..

Three years after it was made a federal holiday , Juneteenth 2024 marks a day of celebration as well as education.

The federal holiday known as “Second Independence Day,” marks the day the last African American slaves were notified that they had been freed from their masters, the National Museum of African American History and Culture said.

Dr. Tim Goler, a professor of urban affairs and sociology courses and director of research for the Center for African American Public Policy at Norfolk State University, told USA TODAY that Juneteenth or "Freedom Day" is a day that shows the "beauty of our culture" that everyone should participate in.

The origins of Juneteenth date back to June 19, 1865 – more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation - when the Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, Goler said.

“This delay and the enforcement of the emancipation in Texas was due to a lack of enforcement until this general arrived," Goler said. "Then Juneteenth thus became this kind of powerful symbol of freedom and the long struggle for civil rights."

The Juneteenth National Independence Day A ct was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in June 2021. The bill was signed by President Joe Biden on June 17, 2021, which officially made the day a federal holiday.

Here's what you need to know about Juneteenth.

An African American holiday: Predating Juneteenth was nearly lost to history. It's back.

Black History, Juneteenth becoming more cemented in fabric of US

Although Juneteenth is now becoming a part of the conversation regarding Black History, there was a time when Black History was not widely discussed within the educational system, especially for historians, said Dr. Alan Singer, a professor of teaching, learning and technology at Hofstra University who writes about the history of slavery and racism.

“I didn't learn it (until) I was an adult, really (in the) 1990s, when as a teacher, I started studying more, so I (could) incorporate it into my lessons,” he said. “I went to City College in the 1960s and they had first introduced a course called ‘American Negro History’ and that was the first time I had learned about any of these things. I took the course because I became a political activist while at City College and I needed to know more about the African American civil rights struggles.”

Singer also adds that he attended high school during the Civil Rights Movement and was never taught about Black History. To change that, he decided to educate himself more to properly teach his students.

“I just felt a heavy responsibility as a teacher to really present a much more accurate picture of the history of the United States,” he said.

Goler adds that Juneteenth has been recognized for years within the Black community and history. Now, the day has become more publicly known.

"In recent years, Juneteenth has gained a much wider recognition. It's only been since 2021 that it became that designated as a federal holiday," he said. "Many Black people and Black communities around the country have celebrated Juneteenth. It's just becoming much more wider and much more visible now."

Commercialization of Juneteenth

Since Juneteenth has been declared a federal holiday, many retailers have unveiled Juneteenth attire through clothing, footwear, hats and other merchandise.

"The question is, 'who benefits from the commercialization of Juneteenth?' I’d definitely like to see more African American (and) more Black businesses benefit," Goler said. "The trend of commercialization, we risk the overshadowing of the historical context, and the ongoing struggle for racial equality that Juneteenth represents."

Singer hopes that companies that are selling Juneteenth products are also advocating for more inclusivity.

“What I'm arguing is that what we need to do is to use a day like Juneteenth as a launching pad to build a more just society,” he said. “It should not just be about the past, it has to be about the future.”

Goler hopes that the holiday will bring everyone together but also educate them about this important day in Black History.

"I think as we observe Juneteenth, it's important to focus on the education, reflection, the community engagement aspect and really ensure that the day remains of a pungent reminder of our continued and enduring fight for freedom and justice," he said.

Ahjané Forbes is a reporter on the National Trending Team at USA TODAY. Ahjané covers breaking news, car recalls, crime, health, lottery and public policy stories. Email her at  [email protected] . Follow her on  Instagram ,  Threads  and  X (Twitter) .

Project 2025 partner senior fellow: “Public schools are religious schools”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 06/24/24 3:59 PM EDT

Citation From the June 21, 2024, edition of Family Research Council's  Washington Watch 

JODY HICE (HOST): This week, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed into law some legislation making his state the first in the nation to [VIDEO GLITCHES] the 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom. The keyword there. I hope you caught it. This bill would require the 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom.

Of course, critics of the legislation, including the ACLU of Louisiana and the Southern Poverty Law Center, they're all arguing that the law violates students' and families' right to religious freedom. But in a society that applauds flying the pride flag in schools, do their demands for their ideology – do their demands really miss the mark?

HICE:  I mean, Joseph, really, is the radical left asking us to believe what they believe by demanding all their radical stuff on our children?

JOSEPH BACKHOLM (SENIOR FELLOW, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL): Well, I think the response there to Whoopi is that public schools are religious schools, and that's really what this moment requires us to recognize.

HICE: Good point.

BACKHOLM: And it is ironic that this decision has come down or this has happened, in Louisiana in June, which is, perhaps the – well, it is the longest religious holiday in the west these days. But we don't – we should see it as a religious holiday, but we have not seen it as a religious holiday. And the reality is, you know, religions come in different flavors, shapes, and sizes, and we worship different gods. And to be sure, the 10 commandments have religious origins for sure.

They also have historical significance to the United States and to the Judeo Christian, perspective, which is the foundation of Western civilization, and that's just a historical reality. So there are, you know, objective kinds of secular reasons to want the idea that we shouldn't cheat on our spouses and steal from each other and kill each other. Those are values that we should be able to unite around, and, of course, that's what the 10 Commandments exist to do.

But what Whoopi Goldberg is trying to convince us of is that there is, otherwise, if the 10 Commandments are not in government schools, that we are somehow, dealing with a neutral space where no values are being encouraged. And that is simply not the case, and Pride month is perhaps the best illustration of that. And we see examples of it throughout the school year to be sure. But Pride flags represent a set of religious values about who is in charge, what is the source of truth, and they would say, we are in charge, and our feelings are the source of truth. And those are just different religious convictions than what scripture gives us.

Does Instagram Reels or TikTok deliver more racy videos to teenagers? New Northeastern research provides answers

• Search Search

• Copy Link Link Copied!

Within 45 minutes of creating an account on Instagram, 13-year-old “Emma” saw videos with performers miming sex acts, nudity and teen girls in lingerie comparing their breasts and butts.

But in the same timeframe on TikTok, “Emma” saw virtually no racy content, according to a new study from Northeastern University.

Social media platforms Instagram and TikTok tout an age-appropriate experience for teens , particularly concerning sexually suggestive material. But are the teen and adult experiences on the platforms that different? 

Northeastern’s Laura Edelson put it to the test .

“In short, for racy content, the experience for teens is much more differentiated on TikTok than on Instagram Reels, with a much larger gap on TikTok than on Instagram Reels,” says Edelson, assistant professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern. 

Instagram, owned by Meta, and TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, both differentiate experiences for younger users. The platforms both change their core product experience to encourage users to occasionally step away from feeds. Both limit how younger users can share content and default their sharing and interacting with other users to more private settings. Both platforms also say there are differences in what content will be recommended to users in their feeds. 

Featured Stories

Can AI help with breast cancer diagnoses? Northeastern researchers develop new system that is nearly 100% accurate 

 A ‘tremendous opportunity.’ Northeastern researchers dig into Boston’s past in support of Boston’s Reparations Task Force

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law is more evidence of the rise of Christian nationalism, expert says

Why are there so many sequels and reboots these days?

“But how does any of that play out in practice?” Edelson asks. 

To see, Edelson set up accounts on both platforms for a pair of female personas: “Emma,” who was 13; and “Anne,” who was 23. 

Neither of the four accounts (one for each on both Instagram and TikTok) added any friends nor followed other accounts. As “Emma” and “Anne,” Edelson also didn’t search for content directly. 

But Edelson watched “racy” content all the way through when it appeared on the respective feeds. She scrolled quickly through content that was not sexually suggestive. 

“The question was how would the algorithm respond to that input,” Edelson says.

The answer? Very differently. 

Edelson rated the “raciness level” of the content the personas saw. The content was broken down into 30-second intervals and rated on a scale of 0 (not racy) to 2 (sexually explicit), using the Google SafeSearch codebook as inspiration. For example, if Edelson saw 20 seconds of a ‘2’ and 10 seconds of a ‘1,’ that 30-second window would have an average score of 1.66.

This enabled Edelson to compare the sexually suggestive content shown to a 13-year-old and a 23-year-old who used TikTok and Instagram Reels. 

“What’s immediately visible is that the experience for the teen user on Reels is much closer to the adult experience on that platform than is the case for teens on TikTok,” Edelson says. 

Over the first 40 minutes, the average raciness score for the adult persona on Reels was 1.5 and the average score for the teen persona on Reels was 1.35, Edelson found. On TikTok, the adult persona saw content with an average score of .54, and the teen persona saw content with a score of only .05, according to the research.

“Both Instagram Reels and TikTok have said we are going to restrict sexually explicit content for teens, and in practice that means very different things on those two platforms,” Edelson says.

So, what does this mean for the user experience? “Emma” and “Anne” were recommended hundreds of “short clips of girls doing silly dances,” Edelson says. 

On TikTok, 13-year-old “Emma” mostly saw girls dancing in sweats or pajamas, while 23-year-old “Anne” saw dancers in tighter clothes, with more bare skin and shot from provocative angles. On Reels, the same videos were shown, but both “Emma” and “Anne” were more likely to see women and girls dancing in lingerie or miming sex acts.

Edelson says the research reveals that, if Reels is trying to moderate sexualized content to teens, “it’s not working.” Whatever TikTok is doing — on the other hand — is working, Edelson says.

“What I take as the meta lesson from this is that I do not think it is enough to just look at the policies that platforms put out in the world,” Edelson continues. “Because what we find when we look at them is that there are huge differences in how they actually implement those policies.”

Society & Culture

Recent Stories

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Biden, Trump supporters both say the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests

Supporters of Joe Biden and Donald Trump differ on many political values, from views of immigration and gender identity to opinions about the government’s role and social safety net programs .

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand voters’ views related to economic issues in the context of the 2024 election. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,709 adults, including 7,166 registered voters, from April 8 to April 14, 2024.

Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

But Trump and Biden supporters share a fair amount of common ground when it comes to criticisms of the U.S. economic system.

According to a Pew Research Center survey of 8,709 adults – including 7,166 registered voters – conducted April 8-14, 2024:

• 85% of registered voters who support Biden say that the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, while just 14% say the system is generally fair to most Americans.
• 62% of registered voters who support Trump say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, while 37% say the system is generally fair.
• Overwhelming majorities of Biden supporters also say major corporations have too much power (84%) and most make too much profit (82%).
• About two-thirds of Trump supporters (65%) say corporations have too much power. They’re about evenly split in their evaluation of business profits: 48% say business corporations make too much profit, and 51% say their profits are fair.

Views about the economic system differ by age and income

There are substantial age and income differences among Trump supporters on whether the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests. These differences are more modest among Biden supporters.

Among Trump supporters

• 71% of Trump supporters ages 18 to 49 say the system unfairly favors powerful interests. A smaller majority (56%) of Trump supporters 50 and older say the same.
• Majorities of Trump supporters with lower (70%) and middle incomes (65%) also say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests. Upper-income Trump supporters are more divided: 44% say the system unfairly favors powerful interests and 55% say the system is generally fair to most Americans.

Among Biden supporters

Biden supporters overwhelmingly say the economic system unfairly favors powerful interests. More than eight-in-ten across all age and income groups say this.

Little recent change in views of the economic system

Since 2019, clear majorities of Americans have said that the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests. But the share saying this today is slightly higher than it was from 2019 to 2021. About three-quarters of all U.S. adults (74%) now say the system unfairly favors powerful interests, compared with 71% in 2021.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, views are essentially unchanged over this period, with 85% now saying the system unfairly favors powerful interests. However, Republicans and Republican leaners are now more likely to say the system unfairly favors powerful interests than they were a few years ago: 62% say this today, compared with 52% in 2019.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

• Economic Systems
• Government Spending & the Deficit

Ted Van Green is a research analyst focusing on U.S. politics and policy at Pew Research Center .

Economic ratings are poor – and getting worse – in most countries surveyed

Most u.s. bank failures have come in a few big waves, black americans view capitalism more negatively than positively but express hope in black businesses, trust in america: how do americans view economic inequality, citizens in advanced economies want significant changes to their political systems, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

© 2024 Pew Research Center