4 Ways to Use Instagram Hashtags For Content Ideas

Find and schedule all national and social media holidays in your calendar.

Do a quick Google search for a list summarizing every national holiday in your country. If the majority of your audience is international, make sure to keep the top three countries in mind by doing a little research and integrating their national holidays into your content marketing. Scheduling all pertinent holidays will really come in handy for planning your digital marketing campaigns ahead of time. 

Download a free hashtag holiday calendar from Later Media! I recently received this awesome freebie from their newsletter subscription, and I haven't missed a beat after scheduling every hashtag holiday in my iCalendar (aka my business BFF). I'd highly recommend subscribing for great weekly social media tips if you want to take your Instagram marketing to the next level!

Search for relevant hashtags in your niche.

What industry are you in? Where does your target market hang out on Instagram? Start brainstorming about your customer's interests and characteristics to factor into your hashtag research. 

For example — if you’re an eco-friendly fashion brand, you would be using hashtags related to your product, your target market, and your brand values like #slowfashionmovement, #konmarimethod, #capsulewardrobechallenge, or #sustainablychic.

Plan according to the day of the week. 

Have you ever looked up a day into Instagram's search to see what hashtags populate? For Monday alone, you get quite a selection (#mondaymotivation, #mondaymood, #mondayblues, #mondaymantra), which serves as great content inspiration when you're stuck and don't know what to talk about or post on social media!

MINI-CHALLENGE — look up each day in the week in Instagram's search to see what hashtags show up and note your favorite into a Google Doc or spreadsheet! This is a great place to start with brainstorming content ideas for your social media marketing.

Represent your neighborhood.

Last but not least, where is your business located? An extremely effective way of growing your business online is focusing on the people that are closest to you! To give you a few ideas, I often use local hashtags like #santabarbaraliving, #santabarbarablogger, and #santabarbarastyle to show up as a search result in Instagram, and to also discover and connect with other local entrepreneurs that I wouldn't have known about.