Looking to boost your content presence and reach a wider audience? Try Instagram Hashtags and take your content discovery and reach to new heights.
Instagram hashtags are a great way to tap into specific communities and target niche audiences. Businesses get to connect with potential customers who are actively looking for content related to their industry or products.
But just using any random hashtags will not serve you. You need to precisely know which ones to use for what format, depending on your niche and target audience.
In this comprehensive blog, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about Instagram hashtags, their different types, and which ones you should use.
So get ready to level up your Instagram game!
An Instagram hashtag is a string of letters, characters, numbers, and emojis prefixed by the sign # (for example, #NoFilter). These hashtags are used to categorize and discover content on the platform, allowing users to find and engage with the posts related to their interests.
When users include trending hashtags in their post captions or use them in the comment section, it enables their content to get grouped with the other posts using the same hashtag.
“Hashtags are the currency of attention on Instagram. They allow businesses to cut through the noise, connect with their target audience, amplify their content’s reach, and engage with potential customers.”
By Gary Vaynerchuk [Famous American entrepreneur and social media expert]
Many people wonder if hashtags still work in 2026. The simple answer to this is “Yes,” even though hashtags are still relevant, their role has shifted from being a primary growth hack to being a content labelling tool that provides context and improves discoverability.
Hashtags help algorithms understand what the post is about, making it more visible in the Explore pages and hashtag feeds of the people interested in those subjects.
Here are some ways in which hashtags work in 2026:
- Context and Categorization: Hashtags act like keywords, telling Instagram what a post is about.
- Discoverability: Hashtags place you in front of the people who are interested in the type of content that you are posting.
- Algorithm Signals: They help algorithms match your content with the right audience.
How to Add an Instagram Hashtag
Adding hashtags to a post is pretty simple. Simply add the # symbol followed by the keyword. Instagram will auto-suggest some popular hashtag options based on the keyword you write. For instance, if I want keywords related to nature, I will simply type #nature and a list of related keywords will appear, as shown below.
The key here is to avoid spaces, punctuation, or emojis between two words, so the correct way to write “nature lovers” as a hashtag is #naturelovers, not #nature lovers.
You may ask, what possibilities can hashtags open for my business? How can hashtag marketing boost your reach? And, are hashtags for Instagram still that powerful?
To answer this, here are some unique insights from industry experts:
1. Amplifying Branding and Visibility
To get your brand in front of your target audience, look for some top Instagram hashtags, preferably the branded ones. Adding these Instagram tags will help you boost your visibility. Also, when your followers share your content with branded hashtags, it will help expand your network.
“Branded hashtags enable businesses to curate user-generated content that not only drives engagement but also enhances brand visibility.”
By Jennifer Lee [digital strategist]
2. Niche Targeting and Community-Building
Leveraging hashtags strategically is key to increasing your Instagram followers. Use industry-specific or niche hashtags to tap into relevant communities and target audiences. This approach helps attract engaged users who are genuinely interested in your content, so you can boost your follower count with quality connections.
3. Keeping Up With the Conversations
By using trending Instagram hashtags, businesses can tap into ongoing conversations and stay relevant. Hashtags for Instagram allow you to ride the wave of popular topics and interact with a wider range of users through your social media posts.
Understanding the different types of hashtags will help you better curate your hashtag strategy.
So, here are the top six types of hashtags:
Branded hashtags are unique to a brand or business and are essential for promoting brand identity, products, or campaigns. A branded hashtag is basically a distinguishing element of your brand’s identity.
“A well-crafted branded hashtag does more than just promote your products; it creates a space for your consumers to engage and share their experiences.”
Katelyn Rhoades, [CEO of Enfluence Marketing Agency]
Brands often use hashtags like #JustDoIt (Nike) or #ShareACoke (Coca-Cola) to foster a strong community around their products. Learn more about hashtag marketing by brands to understand how you can use it for your business.
These hashtags are used in social media posts to connect with specific interest groups or communities. They help users find like-minded individuals and participate in discussions around shared topics.
Using community hashtags is an excellent method to engage with people, enhance the discoverability of your posts, drive new Instagram followers, and expand your network. Examples: #Foodie, #Bikers #Travelgram.
There are some of the best Instagram hashtags for cultural movements such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ Pride, and feminism (#BlackLivesMatter, #Pride, and #feminism, respectively) that you can add to your posts.
Use these hashtags to raise awareness, distribute information, and make your company’s position known.
Check out the top Instagram hashtags catering to the #pride community in the image example below.
This category involves hashtags that are currently popular or trending on social media. They can be related to holidays, current events (World Cup), viral topics, or simply random (ThrowbackThursday).
These hashtags are created by your consumers, for your consumers. Unlike branded or community hashtags, you, as a business, have no control over the content posted under them. Anyone visiting these hashtags can see unfiltered, organic, and unsponsored images of your products shared by real users.
Some popular user-created hashtags are Apple’s #ShotoniPhone (photography), GoPro’s #GoPro (adventure), Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins (fashion), ASOS’s #AsSeenOnMe (outfit sharing). The image below shows the UGC posted for #ShotoniPhone.
Geo-tagging your Instagram post is good, but you can also include a hashtag for your location. They help users discover content related to a specific place or engage with local communities. Like these #NewJerseyLife, #NYC, and #SXSW.
Instagram allows one to add up to 30 hashtags in a post, but stuffing all 30 can make your post look spammy and even reduce its distribution on “Explore”. So, using 5-10 highly relevant hashtags is enough to get a good reach and engagement.
Hashtags are a part of Instagram’s search engine, so the relevance here matters more than the number. Use a strategic mix of broad, mid-range, and niche hashtags instead of using large volumes of generic tags.
Ideally, reels perform best with 3-7 hashtags, stories must be kept clean with just 1-3 hashtags, and feed posts can have between 5-10 tags. Also, for creators, Instagram has publicly stated that they should use 3–5 relevant hashtags.
How to Find the Most Appropriate Hashtag For Your Brand?
When you’re using Instagram to drive brand awareness and engagement, it’s best to take some time out and research the Instagram hashtags that will work for your niche.
So, here are some ways that can help you find the right hashtags for your posts on Instagram
1. Research Your Audience
Conduct thorough research to identify their interests, preferences, and the hashtags that your audience would normally use.
Find out what topics they are interested in, what communities they engage with, and what hashtags repeatedly appear in the posts that they like, repost, or comment on.
Picking and using similar hashtags in your content will put it in front of the right people.
“We create a list of niche-specific hashtags and regularly review their performance to see which ones drive the most engagement. It’s a good idea to balance popular hashtags with less popular ones for increased visibility and engagement.”
Katelyn Rhoades, [CEO of Enfluence Marketing Agency]
Look for some high-performing accounts in your niche and see the top Instagram hashtags they use. You can also check the tags used in the viral posts of your competitors or industry leaders. You may find some niche hashtags that might be missing in your posts.
You can also use SocialPilot’s free Instagram Competitor Analysis tool to compare your Instagram profile with that of your competitors. This tool will precisely tell you which hashtags are helping your competitors get discovered on Instagram. You can also track their top interaction hashtags, average hashtags they use per post, and hashtag co-occurrence to refine your own strategy.
3. Check the Explore Page Suggestions
The Instagram Explore page is one of the BEST places to research hashtags. Just open the Explore Page (magnifying glass icon) and see which posts similar to your niche or content theme are getting high engagement.
Tap on those posts and scroll down to see the hashtags they have used. Below those hashtags, Instagram will automatically show some suggested hashtags and related content topics. These suggestions are algorithm-backed and can help you reach audiences already consuming similar content.
Another way to find the right hashtags for your brand is to use SocialPilot’s Instagram hashtag generator. In the search box, just write the theme of your post, and this tool will provide you with a comprehensive list of keywords based on their popularity.
Right from your industry-specific hashtags for Instagram to the relevant high-engagement and niche tags, this hashtag generator will generate them all in a matter of seconds. Try it out for yourself by typing your query below.
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While hashtag research tools are great, you will still have to put in some time to select the hashtags from their curated list. So, if you are in a rush to add hashtags while drafting your Instagram posts, consider using SocialPilot’s AI Pilot, which helps you generate your entire Instagram post captions and the hashtags on one single dashboard.
With AI Pilot, you can not only generate posts, but also change their tone, shorten, expand, and translate them if needed.
There are several high-impact places across Instagram where brands can use hashtags to boost their discoverability, engagement, and reach.
Here’s where a hashtag can be used:
- In a post caption
- In the first comment of a post
- In Instagram stories, as hashtag stickers
- In your Instagram bio
- In comments on another user’s post
- In Instagram ads to support organic distribution
Brands often use comment hashtags when they want the caption to focus only on messaging or storytelling. To add a comment hashtag, simply add a comment that includes the desired hashtags.
Instagram will still index these hashtags in the same way as caption hashtags. Just make sure to stick to the relevant hashtags, as irrelevant or spammy tags can hurt reach. Also, add this comment within the first minute for maximum reach.
You can also create a saved hashtag group of popular hashtags in your niche so you can paste them quickly and consistently for all your posts.
The image below shows how an Instagrammer has efficiently used content hashtags on their post:
Finally, you have made it to the point where we will explore some of the top hashtags for different categories. It’s important to note that the popularity of these hashtags can fluctuate over time.
Here is a list of the top Instagram hashtags that have historically gained high engagement and can help you get more likes:
After finding the best Instagram hashtags for your business and exploring the top hashtags for different niches, it’s time to use them correctly.
Using hashtags the right way is crucial for a business to grow organically on Instagram. Things can go out of hand quickly if you don’t use them correctly.
Here are several important considerations to remember while using hashtags:
Instagram performs better when you use 5–10 well-chosen hashtags instead of maxing out all 30. As we have mentioned above, using too many hashtags can dilute your content’s topic signals and make it harder for Instagram to categorize your post accurately.
For more such insights on hashtag usage, read our Instagram trends report, which we have curated after careful evaluation of over 45000+ Instagram accounts. Our analysis showed that posts with no hashtags saw 23% better reach than those loaded with hashtags.
Source: Statista
A similar study by Statista found that the average Instagram engagement rate peaks at three to four hashtags per post.
Did you know there are hashtags that are banned on Instagram?
Well, they do exist.
Instagram regularly bans hashtags that tend to be frequently used with illicit content. Instagram users report some of these hashtags because the posts using them violate Instagram’s guidelines.
To avoid getting your account caught up in the middle of this battlefield, you can regularly check Instagram’s guidelines to stay updated. You can see the full list of banned hashtags to avoid accidentally using any banned or restricted hashtags.
Don’t hesitate to create custom hashtags for your specific campaigns or events. This will help you easily track who engaged with your hashtag and encourage your audience to use it more.
Make sure it’s unique, easy to remember, and relevant to your audience.
For example, see how KitKat created a specific hashtag, “Mybreak,” for their campaigns and encouraged people to share their stories with KitKat.
Last but not least, add hashtags in Instagram Stories to enhance your brand’s visibility, attract new followers, and amplify your marketing efforts.
“Stories have a short shelf life, so it’s crucial to make every second count. Using broader, trending hashtags can give your Story the extra push it needs to reach a wider audience in a short amount of time.”
Katelyn Rhoades, [CEO of Enfluence Marketing Agency]
But when using hashtags in Stories, you might want to cast your net as wide as possible to maximize its visibility, because if you use a super-specific hashtag, the chances of someone searching it during the 24-hour timeframe are fairly slim.
You can either use a text-based hashtag or select a suitable hashtag sticker by clicking on the sticker icon. Remember that you can only use one hashtag sticker per Story, and it’s advised to use no more than three text-based hashtags for each Story. The image below shows a clickable text hashtag in an Insta story.
The best way to build your hashtag strategy is by measuring its effectiveness through analytics. By analyzing your hashtags, you can monitor the success of your experiments and fine-tune your strategy.
You can use Instagram analytics by clicking the “View Insights” option to track the performance. From there, you can see complete post insights like Profile Visits and Impressions from home, hashtags and profile.
Although you cannot identify which specific hashtag generated how many impressions, you will be able to monitor your overall hashtag performance.
Finding the best hashtags can make or break your Instagram strategy. Hashtags help your content get discovered by the right audience – but simply adding them isn’t enough. You need to track how they perform.
SocialPilot’s Hashtag Performance Analytics helps you track how each hashtag is actually performing. See detailed metrics like post count, average reach, and engagement for individual hashtags to understand what’s driving visibility.
Instead of randomly picking hashtags, you’ll have the data to fine-tune your strategy, maximize reach, and grow faster.
Also, examining the insights of just 1 or 2 posts might not work. Examine numerous posts to evaluate how your hashtags are working.
Check how frequently your posts appear in hashtag searches, and how consistent your higher-performing posts are. See if there is some recurring factor? Perhaps you obtained higher search results every time you used a particular hashtag.
Examine the specifics of your posts to see which type of content performs the best for you.
Turning Hashtags into a Growth Lever on Instagram
Instagram hashtags are the key to unlocking greater visibility, reach, and engagement on the platform. With the right hashtag strategy, you can attract a more targeted audience, boost content discovery, and turn casual scrollers into loyal followers.
But creating great content is only half the battle – timing and consistency matter just as much.
That’s where tools like SocialPilot can help you manage, schedule, and optimize your Instagram posts without the usual chaos. From visualizing your content calendar to collaborating with teams and handling multiple clients, it keeps everything streamlined.
It also helps you generate the best hashtags for your posts to keep your Instagram momentum going. Try SocialPilot today to create a hashtag strategy that’s backed by insights.
