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Instagram have recently rolled out the ability for users to follow #hashtags in the same way that you can follow people. This opens up some great opportunities for both your business and your followers.

So firstly how do you follow a hashtag? It’s quite simple really. Tap a hashtag in an Instagram post. This will display a page containing allure latest posts containing the hashtag. Then just tap the ‘follow’ button, in the same way you’d follower a fellow Instagram user.

When you then want to see what’s being said just go to your profile, tap ‘following’ and then you’ll see you have the options of ‘People’ or ‘Hashtags’ to view. Click ‘Hashtags’ and then see a list of all the hashtags you follow, select one and then browse.

As described above, you’ll now have hashtag ‘lists’ in much the same way that you can on Twitter. This will enable you to build up the ability to see what’s trending in your chosen area of business and in turn help you to determine what’s popular and what you can then use in your posts to get more interaction. It’s important to know that you can only add hashtags to your own posts and you can’t add more than 30 to an individual post.

The addition of hashtag following on Instagram now means that you could potentially use the same searchable hashtag across all social networks, ensuring brand cohesion. This is particularly important if you take advantage of creating your own brand specific hashtags. Promoting these across all social media and offline materials could really increase brand awareness.

If you’re lucky, and obviously depending on the structure of your hashtag, other users could start using it and it could then take on a life of its own like my #bemoresocial hashtag. Don’t be fooled though, this might take time to build up that sort of following and desire in your followers.

Remember to do a bit of research before you decide on any brand based hashtag to ensure that, if anyone else is using it, it’s not being used in a negative way. Having your own hashtag is a great way to promote an event, competition, location or product.  On Instagram, hashtags can contain numbers but no spaces or special characters. Think careful before you settle on your brand based hashtag as you’ll want to use this regularly and potentially for a number of years.

So there you have a brief overview of the benefits of having the ability to follow hashtags on Instagram.

If you need more information or help on how Instagram could work for your business please get in touch with me at http://paulkirkdesign.co.uk or at @PKirk_designer

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