Today We’ll Discuss On Instagram Hashtags Not Working:
A hashtag is just a keyword phrase with a pound symbol (#) in front of it, spelled out without spaces. #photooftheday and #fashionlovers, for example, are both hashtags.
Although Hashtags were first popularized by Twitter, Instagram has greatly enhanced its usage and prominence.
When you utilize hashtags in your Instagram posts, your material is shared with other Instagram users who are interested in your specialty or sector.
This increases the number of people who see your post by allowing users who aren’t even your followers to see it.
As a result, your targeting approach improves and your brand grows. Let’s take a look at why your Instagram hashtags aren’t functioning before we get into why they aren’t working.
Table of Contents
Why Instagram Hashtags Not Working
What Is the Point of Using Instagram Hashtags?
Using Instagram hashtags is one of the most basic strategies to increase interaction and attract new followers to your photos.
In fact, social media marketers have shown that even utilizing one hashtag may boost engagement by more than 20%.
While we all desire more Instagram followers, having followers who aren’t interested in your specialty is worthless.
You may target those who identify with your content by using the right hashtags. And if they like your pieces, they’re likely to subscribe to your feed in the hopes of seeing more on the same subject.
Even if people don’t go so far as to follow you, they could like the stuff you provide while looking for a certain hashtag.
Instagram’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. This implies there’s no possibility you’ll mistakenly give the proper stuff to the wrong folks.
When you use hashtags, you’re essentially assisting Instagram in sorting and organizing your posts, allowing them to reach individuals who would appreciate them.
Hashtags should be specific to your website, content, and market. You will undoubtedly miss out on the various advantages that hashtags provide if you do not have an effective hashtag strategy.
Hashtags are helpful for categorizing material. These may either be generic hashtags that everyone uses – in which case you’re grouping your posts and photographs with others who share similar material – or they can be specific hashtags that only you use.
Many companies, on the other hand, use specialty hashtags to generate interest and group together postings about a certain product or promotion.
And this may lead to more engagement, followers, and consumers for your company.
Instagram Hashtags Not Working: How To Fix It Easily?
Why aren’t my hashtags on Instagram working? Some of the causes are as follows:
Using hashtags that are prohibited
The fact that Instagram has restricted some hashtags for everyone might be the reason of Instagram hashtags not functioning. As a result, no one’s post will appear in the forbidden hashtag stream.
Contrary to common belief, prohibited hashtags are not confined to abusive, indecent, or explicit material; there are even innocent or innocuous hashtags (e.g. #desk and #lean) that are banned for reasons such as a large amount of spam.
Hashtags are either temporarily or permanently prohibited. Using forbidden hashtags may result in you being shadowbanned, or it may prevent other hashtags from functioning on your post.
There are presently over 115,000 blocked hashtags on Instagram.
So, how can you avoid having your Instagram hashtags banned? You should check for prohibitions on each hashtag before using it.
Hit the search button on the explore page and enter in the hashtag you want to use. It is prohibited if it does not appear.
Because it’s possible that a hashtag may display on the list yet still be prohibited, you should double-check it by pressing on it and scrolling down.
In 2021, here’s a list of forbidden hashtags to stay away from.
On Instagram, here’s a list of hashtags that have been misused and are now forbidden. Try to stay away from them. Otherwise, your comment will be flagged as offensive.
#adulting #alone #americangirl #armparty #asiandick #attractive #babyrp #bacak #badbitcztwerk #baddie #balenciaga #curvygirls #customers #dating #Direct #DM #elevator #PornFood #Ravens #StreetPhotos #WTF
Your account has been shadowbanned.
Another reason Instagram hashtags aren’t functioning is if a user’s account has been shadowbanned. You may have been shadowbanned if you observe a dramatic decline in your Instagram interaction or reach.
In terms of hashtags, the true reason of the shadowban is when hashtags are hijacked and overused. This occurs on a regular basis.
Instagram has said that it does not engage in any kind of shadow banning. They argue that such measures against accounts are not taken.
After all, if they want someone prohibited, they’ll simply ban them.
There’s no need to conceal them by using deception. Shadowbans actually exist in reality. Instagram has put in place strict hashtag use limits throughout the years.
It’s understandable that you can unwittingly commit spammy hashtag crimes, which might result in a shadowban on your account.
Shadowban has the effect of only allowing your followers to see your material. This limits your ability to reach new audiences. Among the most prevalent infractions are:
- Using a hashtag that has been misused or is broken
- Using hashtags that aren’t related to your post
- Using the same hashtags over and again in your posts
- Remove any prohibited or misused hashtags from your posts if you’ve been shadowbanned. For a few days, don’t use hashtags in your postings.
If this doesn’t work, you should contact Instagram and report the problem.
Using wide hashtags rather than particular hashtags
Hashtags should be relevant and appropriate to your business or specialty. It’s critical to choose hashtags carefully and ensure that they’re relevant to your target audience.
You should consider what keywords your ideal clientele would use to find you.
Similarly, avoid trending hashtags such as #followforfollow, #weekends, #summer, and so on, since they will work against your hashtag strategy.
Hashtags aren’t diverse enough.
A good hashtag strategy for a company can include a mix of popular hashtags that appeal to a wider audience and more niche-targeted, less popular hashtags that will more likely position your content towards the top of that hashtag.
By doing so, you’re casting a broad net over both popular and smaller, more focused hashtags.
Using hashtags that are too competitive
Every hashtag on Instagram, as you may know, has two tabs: Top and Recent. The top tab displays the items that garnered a large number of likes and comments during the first few hours of their publication.
They may remain at the top of the page for many hours, gaining a lot of exposure as well as organic likes and comments.
Instead, the recent tab lists every picture or video with those hashtags in order of when they were published. That is all there is to it.
Imagine sharing a picture with the hashtag #photography, which has 535 million postings as of this writing.
Your picture will appear in the first 9 photographs on the recent tab for less than a second, and it will never appear on the top tab since that hashtag is just too competitive.
This means you’ll need to identify 30 hashtags with little competition in order to get noticed by individuals who aren’t already following you and gain more organic likes, comments, and follows.
For each article you publish, I recommend employing a 10/10/10 hashtag strategy:
- 10 Hashtags That Aren’t Too Competitive (5,000 to 50,000 total posts)
- 10 Hashtags That Aren’t Too Competitive (50,000 to 200,000 total posts)
- 10 Hashtags with a High Level of Competition (200,000 – 2,000,000 total posts)
Finding the proper hashtags takes more than a minute. It requires patience and, on sometimes, lateral thinking.
Starting with wider hashtags, you may search for long-tail hashtags on Instagram.
If you start putting a hashtag like “#outdoorshots” in the caption of your Instagram picture, you’ll get a number more suggestions:
- 5000 posts in #outdoorshots
- 76,500 posts in #myproshot
- 231,000 posts on #discoverlandscape
You now have a low, medium, and high competitive hashtag just by doing this.
Recap
The importance of having a strong hashtag strategy cannot be overstated. Hashtags may help you attract your target clientele, interact with other creatives, and brand your company.
If you use them intelligently, selectively, and critically, you will undoubtedly increase your business’s development.
It might be stressful to have to choose hashtags every time you create a post. For postings on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram, we advocate automating this procedure.
