Hashtags: Why Put Hashtags In Comments On Instagram

Why put hashtags in comments on Instagram? This question has become a heated debate in the land of social media! But, no fear! I got you. Listen, the three things Instagram is looking at the most when determining whether or not they’re going to show your post to more people is…

• Amount of interest in your post
• Timeliness of that interest
• Relationship you have with your community

Most posts on Instagram have a relatively short shelf life. This means that they’re shown to people for a limited amount of time. Be it five minutes, an hour, or even up to a few days. But after that time is over, the likelihood of someone organically seeing your post in their feed drastically declines.

That’s why we need as many people as possible seeing, engaging with, and commenting on our posts after we post it. Like, immediately! This results in more people viewing our posts altogether.

Why?

Well, their fancy algorithm will look at our posts and see that the interest level is high, the timeliness is high, and the relationships are high. Instagram is set up to honor all of this engagement by showing our posts to additional users. It’s kind of like a snowball effect.

And what is going to ensure immediate engagement to get your post ranking higher? Hashtags! And here’s a few of the most important practices when using them.

Hashtag Tip 1: Have your hashtags ready.

As noted above, Instagram is checking out the timeliness of the interest in your post. The quicker you get hashtags coupled with your post, the better. I highly suggest you decide on your hashtags long before you publish any content. You do this by checking out popular hashtags within your niche.

Hashtag Tip 2: Copy / Paste / Publish.

Okay, you’re about to post your content on IG. Your cute picture has been filtered to your liking and your written text is personal, succinct, and proofread. But! Before you actually hit that publish, you’re going to go into your notes app (or wherever you have your previously decided hashtags saved) and copy them.

Then go back into Instagram and publish your post. Once it’s completely uploaded, you immediately paste said hashtags to the post.

Hashtag Tip 3: Post hashtags in the first comment.

There have been some discrepancies as to whether hashtags go in the caption or in the first comment. On Instagram, specifically (as opposed to Facebook), the best place for hashtags is in the first comment. The reason for this is that if you put them in the caption, they can be visually distracting, ugly, and take away from whatever your caption might be saying.

But if you put them in the first comment, they’re hidden. Basically, these hashtags won’t be seen by the public. And, it doesn’t make a difference in terms of engagement whether they’re in the first comment or the caption.

Either way, you’re going to get the same amount of likes and your post is going to be shown within that hashtag category. That’s a big deal, my friends!

Again, I can’t stress enough the timeliness factor here. Whenever I post a photo on Instagram, the hashtags are added to the first comment within two seconds. No time should be wasted. Before anything else is complete after you’ve made your post public, the very first step you must take to ensure high engagement is put those hashtags into the first comment. Got it?

Now, for 3 additional – NON HASHTAG RELATED – tips when posting onto Instagram (and these happen to apply to Facebook, too), you MUST check out tis episode of Build Your Tribe – Increase Instagram Reach by Doing These 4 Things Immediately After Posting – with Brock Johnson! They are super easy steps you can (and should) apply today if you’re looking to change your Instagram game, stat!

And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to BYT for weekly social media hacks that’ll 100% change your game!