Opinions on keeping the hashtags? I’m an visual artist – I put 25 or so and I was deleting then a couple weeks after posting. I think long term the clean look is nice, and you would think the benefits of more like, would be over. But a potential client said he searched some term and found me (and that must have been months after a post… )
So they are real ugly and pollute the brand… on one hand, but could bring business. Trade off? Any opinions from the experts? Thanks.
What looks ugly to you doesn’t necessarily looks ugly for ordinary Instagram users.
Hashtags are good for exposure, IG users are bombarded with them daily and got used to it, so I don’t really think you should delete them after some time.
As Adnan said, hashtags are really good for exposure. If you are looking for organic growth, hashtags are still the #1 way to do it on Insta right now.
But you’re right, for a brand, using a lot of hashtags looks spammy. Insta gives you an option to put in 30 hashtags… what I usually do is to decide how many of these to use depending on the brand I’m working for. If it’s a really big brand or someone who thinks they have a big brand, I go for 1-5 hashtags - usually with 1 or 2 branded and the others very generic/high volume hashtags (like #nature). And for the smallest ones, the ones who need every single click, like and impression, I use 2-3 sets of 30 hashtags with a good balance between high, medium and low volume tags which are renewed on a quarterly basis. And it works - it gets them clients.
So decide how many clients you have, how many clients you want, and how you want your brand to be seen and you’ll be able to decide.
Technically I’m not sure what exactly will be the effect of changing/deleting hashtags after a long period of time. I know it’s usually not good for reach if you change them in a few hours. Maybe you can use all 30 hashtags when the post goes out to get maximum immediate reach/engagement and then delete 20-25 of them and just keep the main or branded hashtags after a week or so.
I’ve made sales from people finding my hashtags on Instagram and clicking the link in my bio. Don’t delete them. Ordinary Instagram users just see them as a tool to be able to find the stuff they’re looking for.
You should never base business decisions on a focus group of 1.
Let the market decide. IG allows you and even encourages you to use as many hashtags as you can. That should be your only indicator.
And, if you do use them, going back to delete them is a pure waste of your time and efforts.
Thanks guys, what I mean to ask: if what effect to hashtags have after the initial bump of first 10 min.
Someone wrote that 99% of the benefits are gone art the first few mintues. So why not delete them and then have nice clean look to the post later? Do you think Adnan, others/ they bring benefits months later?
PS I have no clients, for me, self employed business, artist.
I think you are mixing up the product (your art) with the marketing tool meant to drive traffic to your art (your posts on Instagram).
Your post is nothing more than a marketing message and as such, you should take advantage of every tool that is made available to you. Once you have someone’s attention and you have driven them to your site or a gallery or what have you - you are 100% in control of what you show them and how it looks.
And to answer your question - if anyone is willing to go back and check out your old posts - the are clearly showing interested in your art / content. If they are, they would not care one bit if you have hashtags below it or not. If they do, that is on them, not on you.