Hi All, I was wondering if anyone knows how Instagram behaves when you use English-based hashtags in not-english words.
For example, If I use generic hashtags like #startuplife and at the same time mix it with some Spanish hashtags and a Spanish caption, have I confused instagram in understanding for whom (English-speakers or Spanish speakers) that message was?
Furthermore, does anyone know if the explore page checks what’s your preferred language and suggests yours, but knows your interest in the English-related topics and suggest them to you from Spanish content creators?
What I’m trying to understand here is if I should use 30 hashtags all in the local language, or mix them with hashtags that are commonly used in every language and trust that instagram does the magic in targeting only people with the specific language proficiency?
Hey Avo, How are you planning to handle that?
I’m very battleded in how to handle it too, as instagram translation tools are not as great as facebook multilingual capabilities. Thus, I’m inclined to create distinct profiles for each language, and feature the other profile once in a while
The caption gets translated but the #Hashtags stay the same. So you target everyone who speaks the language. When you want you could target 30 languages with 30 hashtags but that wouldnt be really targeted.
On accident I did a little test conerning this. I started a new account it was planned to be an english account. While warming up I did my first interactions with big english accounts in that niche. but then I changed my mind and decided to use it as german account. So when I started posting with hashtags I only used german hashtags. And now 10 days after the first hashtag posted IG is still not sure what language I am (or they are sure I am multilingual) because when i check the friend suggests they suggest me german and english accounts. On other accounts where I was consistent in my “Interactions with languages” they suggest me german OR english accounts. So my guess is when it comes to languages it also plays a big role which language you are interacting with. Maybe some Advanced users could jump in and share their thoughts? I spent a lot of time on fb experimenting with the algo. And for fb I would say “You are what you like(what you are interacting with)” counts. This seems to be pretty similar on IG.
Great insights already, but did you only interact with mix languages or also used mixed hashtags?
One of the many questions is, also: If I interact with english people but only post in my language, will it matter only for my explore page or also for my target audience explore page? This should not matter, I guess, unless instagram is confused about my identity.
Did not use 1 english hashtag on that account I just followed and liked english accounts. Haha If for example you only interact with english dog pics you become an english dog for IG. And your post are more likely to get shown to englishspeaking doglovers. Everywhere you can show up.
It it not as simple as what language your hashtags are in. I’ve worked with a lot of international accounts and I can tell you that 95% of them use at least a few English hashtags, no matter what language they are targeting.
The nature of hashtags is such that the far majority of them are in English, so IG does not base language on them.
It comes from your captions, your actual geo placement where you post (don’t forget that they have your posting IP), who YOU follow, your settings, the comments, the people who follow you and interact with you and much much more.
In short, you are not doing yourself a disservice by mixing local and English tags. It might not be the best growth tactic, but it will not confuse IG in relation to your main language.
Current plan is to use majority dynamic English hashtags and specific hashtags to the niche in multiple languages.
These same multi language hashtags are used to find the repost content too.
Finding the right hashtags to use takes some research though!
So far I have English and Korean working nicely so am confident that the concept works, now to keep building up the appropriate hashtags.