How to Use Hashtags to Grow Your Instagram Audience
EPISODE SEVEN
Jenn has an easy hashtag tip that she guarantees will boost Instagram engagement for authors who take a few minutes to do it.
Hashtags are a great way to make your posts seen on Instagram, but they are an even better way to help you grow your audience and boost engagement. Here's a quick tip that you can apply to Instagram today - I guarantee you will see results from this!
Identify 4-5 hashtags your ideal reader uses. Think genre, interests, etc. This will require a little research.
Type one of your hashtags into Instagram's search field and look at the most recent posts.
Scroll through and leave a genuine comment on 3-4 posts (or more if you have time).
Repeat this for all 4-5 hashtags.
This should only take about 10-15 minutes and you will see results almost immediately.
Links
"130+ of the Best Hashtags for Authors on Instagram"
Transcript
JENN: Welcome to episode seven of the Book Marketing Simplified podcast. I'm Jenn Hanson dePaula.
MARCUS: And I'm Marcus dePaula. In the last episode we talked about conversation starters. That topic came out of me looking at the analytics for our website and seeing that it was a popular search result. Our second highest search result is actually a post that you wrote called "130 of the Best Hashtags for Authors on Instagram." Plus you set this episode up in the last one to say how you can use hashtags to start conversations.
I see not just a lot of authors, but a lot of people in general on social media platforms that use hashtags just kind of piling on all these hashtags they think might be helpful in the posts and it almost feels kind of spammy to me. What have you found works best for using hashtags?
JENN: Well, there are two distinct uses for hashtags. The first one is, of course, using the hashtags in your own posts. The problem that a lot of authors have is they are thinking about themselves with using these hashtags. You need to remember that hashtags are what your readers are searching for. This is categorizing certain topics or information that they're looking for.
So just because it's about your book doesn't mean that you can only use your name - your branded hashtag and the hashtag that you've created for your book - and that people will discover it. They're not going to be searching for that. Like if you're writing a futuristic romance novel, they'll look for #futureromance or something like that. They aren't going to be looking for you in particular. So the first rule is thinking of this as categorizing your particular post.
MARCUS: I also think of the hashtags as keywords. If you think about keyword searching just in general for like Google or whatever, it's a lot of the same thing, but these hashtags actually create threads that people can follow. And that's why it's not bad to use your branded hashtag because then people can click on that or tap on it and they can see all of your posts.
JENN: Yes. But it's also important to use hashtags that are also relevant to what you're posting about so people can find you.
So that is the one way that obviously everyone uses hashtags is using them in the post. But the most powerful way that I've seen and that I've used hashtags is in joining other conversations. When authors just use hashtags in their posts and just kind of sit back and wait for the conversations to come in, you're going to be waiting for a long time because it's not something that happens right away. It's something that you need to be an active participant in as well. Authors might think that this takes a lot of time, but it literally takes 10 or 15 minutes and you can even spread it out throughout the day.
But the first step that I would encourage you to take is to identify four or five hashtags that you feel your ideal reader uses. So think about what genre you're writing for, their interests and other things. Their hobbies.
MARCUS: What your book is focused on.
JENN: Yeah. And what you want to connect with your ideal reader on. And this takes a little bit of research, but it's something that when you put just a little bit of time in on the front end, you'll see benefits from it long after you spend an hour researching hashtags.
MARCUS: So if you need some help on where to start with finding hashtags, obviously you can download the resource that we created from the blog post that I mentioned "130 of the Best Hashtags for Authors on Instagram." We'll have a link to that in the show notes.
JENN: Yes. So identifying four or five of them. And then you type that hashtag into the search field. There are gonna be two different categories that show up. There's going to be the top posts and the most recent posts. And what I encourage you to do is to go to the most recent posts, because the top posts A) they might be months old, but they have a ton of engagement, and B) there's so much conversation going around them that you'll kind of get lost.
So what I like to do is to go to the most recent posts. That's when you can really initiate those conversations with people, because if they just posted that a few minutes ago or an hour ago, they're going to be attentive to see who's responding. And so if you can leave a comment or like that post. And it's not spamming people with the comments. It's leaving a genuine response. Take the time and read their caption and reply to that, or share a thought that contributes to the conversation.
MARCUS: And how you relate to it.
JENN: Exactly. And going in and leaving maybe three or four comments within that hashtag that you've searched and like, and maybe even share one if you find something that you really like. This is how you introduce yourself to people on Instagram. And if you do this process for those four or five different hashtags, you repeat that process, I guarantee you you are going to see more engagement on your posts. You are going to see engagement, just them going back and forth with you on these comments that you've left, and you're going to see more likes and followers on your own account. Because this is how you reach your hand out and you say, "hi, I'm Jenn."
And so you might think, Oh, this is going to take forever. But it's actually enjoyable when you can really see, and comment on people that you share similar interests with that you have things in common with. It's like having a conversation with a friend and you're just sitting right across from them.
MARCUS: Alright, so this is quick and easy. What's the make it happen moment for this episode?
JENN: Pick four or five hashtags. And it's not going to probably be the same four or five every time. You can switch things up or you can for a few days use those same four or five hashtags. But pick four or five to begin with and start initiating conversations and start comments and likes and shares with those posts and you will see an increase in your engagement.
MARCUS: Now, here's a question - if your audience isn't on Instagram, maybe you're on LinkedIn. Does the same approach help on LinkedIn? And Twitter?
JENN: Yes. Twitter is another one that's great. It's going to be different on LinkedIn. They're not going to be the same hashtags. You'll need to do the same search. It's the same approach. On Twitter what are they using? The hashtag #writercommunity is a very popular one. If you want to connect with other authors. The genre and stuff. So you'll need to research for each outlet to find the best hashtags for each. But yes, it's the same approach.
MARCUS: But start out just with the one platform that you have the most traction on already. Don't feel like you have to do this everywhere.
JENN: Absolutely.
MARCUS: All right, so that's a quick and easy thing to try to grow your audience on instagram or any of the other platforms that use hashtags. As always, we want to hear from you. So leave us comment on the episode page and you can get the link to the relevant blog posts that we talked about at bookmarketingsimplified.com/seven
JENN: So we hope you found this helpful. Put it to work and let us know how it works for you.
MARCUS: And if you found this helpful, you can help us out by rating us in your favorite podcast app. And letting other people know about our podcast. Thanks so much.
JENN: Until next time.