I’m not really a Reels guy but I did have someone ask me a good question about them. So I went away and did my research and in this article, I will explain to you how you can find the best Instagram hashtags for Reels!
With Instagram Reels, you need to use relevant hashtags that your ideal followers would actively be searching for – and following. These hashtags should be big enough to gain you decent exposure but not so big that you’re competing with dozens of whale-sized accounts.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into how you can easily find hashtags that will get you in front of the right audience, and as a result; get you more likes, comments, shares and followers.
Finding Hashtags
There’s no point in using hashtags that nobody is searching for.
To avoid this, you can go through your follower list and check out the hashtags that they are actually following.
Do this by going to your follower’s profile, click on their “Following” and then looking under “Hashtags”.
As you can see in the above image, Talie is following the hashtags #selfdiscovery, #9tothrive and #brandstrategy.
I would never have thought to use the hashtag #9tothrive, would you?
But that’s the thing, now I can use these Instagram hashtags for Reels as well as my regular posts. With this knowledge, I’m using hashtags that I know people are following.
As there’s a good chance that if Talie is following these hashtags, other like-minded people are too.
And the more people that are actually following these hashtags, the more eyes you’ll have looking at your content.
Simple, right?
It must be said though, I have chosen Talie as an example because she matches the description of my ideal client. This would not work nearly as well if I were to use the hashtags from some random account.
Hashtag Relevance
Following on from my last point, your Instagram hashtags for Reels need to be relevant to the content that you’re posting.
Instagram and its algorithm do not take kindly to those who use random hashtags in order to gain a few cheap likes or followers.
So you need to ask yourself, are these hashtags relevant to this Reel?
If not then you should replace them with something else.
It’s also worth reminding you that the content of the Reel itself should also remain relevant to your overall brand, otherwise you risk attracting an audience of random people that will never buy any of your products or services.
I recently posted the above quote from Conor McGregor on my Instagram. In the caption, I used relevant hashtags like #mma, #ufc, #thenotorious and more.
Although these hashtags were relevant to the content, all they did was attract a random audience of mixed-martial arts fans that have barely engaged with any of my more recent posts.
These followers slowly killed my engagement rates (and reach) and I had no choice but to remove them one by one to revive my account.
That’s why it’s important to ensure that not only are your hashtags relevant to your content, but your content has to be consistent with your brand too.
It is far better to have a following of 1,000 people that love your content, than 100,000 people that couldn’t care less.
hashtag size
This is probably the most difficult aspect of finding the right hashtags, as there is no definitive solution that I can give you without you needing to “work it out” on your own.
Theoretically speaking, you will need to use hashtags that are perfectly matched between having high search volume and low competition [from larger accounts].
If you can find hashtags that meet both of these criteria then you’ll greatly increase your chances of bringing in tons of new followers.
NOTE: You can just a hashtag’s search volume by the number of posts it has under the tag. For instance, #love has 2.1 billion posts whereas #mikewalterz only has 2 😢
For smaller accounts, I would suggest using hashtags that are on a smaller scale yet would still be searched for or maybe even followed by your ideal followers.
That being said, the easiest way to find relevant hashtags that are perfectly sized for your account would be to use the Flick App.
Flick allows you to enter a specific keyword before suggesting dozens of relevant hashtags that you could realistically compete for. It does this within a matter of seconds.
Try out Flick’s 7 day free trial today.
How many hashtags?
You may now be wondering, “how many hashtags can I use in my Reels?” and the answer is…
Thirty.
That’s the maximum that Instagram allows and despite them often suggesting that people should use less, studies have shown that using all 30 permitted hashtags tends to wield the best results.
I mean, why wouldn’t it?
Remember that with each hashtag you use, that’s yet another opportunity to get your Reels in front of a new audience.
Would you rather have 10 opportunities or 30?
In the Captions or the comments?
Where should you place your Instagram hashtags for Reels to get the most likes, comments, shares and followers?
Do you place them in the Reels’ caption or in the comments?
The answer… It doesn’t matter.
There’s no real difference to whether you place the hashtags in the caption of your Reels or in the comment section, although with the latter you should do so immediately after posting.
Just go with whatever works best for you.
Conclusion
Finding the best Instagram hashtags for Reels comes down to using hashtags that are relevant to your content, actively being searched for and followed, as well as being small enough for you to compete for without being trampled on by a truckload of massive accounts using the same hashtags.
Have any questions or feedback on this post? Let me know in the comments below!
