Ah, hashtags – those funny little characters at the bottom of everyone’s Instagram posts.  So popular, they’ve even made it into conversations offline now (in an ironic way, we hope).

But what are they, actually?

Back when (cast your mind back to ye olde 2007) social media was just a whisper on the marketing streets and hashtags merely lurked in the shadows. No one was particularly sure what they were, or how to use them.

They knew the hashtag sign (#) as a pound key (not this kind –  £). Sounds incredibly alien, right? People soon caught on that hashtags help to filter topics of conversations into streams on social media. 

For instance, you can click on trending hashtags like #food and see an aggregation of all of the posts on that channel about food (see image below and also say hello to 370 million pictures of food!). It’s almost like creating a chat room based on that hashtag and this is applicable to most social channels. 

But, are hashtags even still relevant in 2021?

Ya damn skippy they are! Instagram might have been through more changes than Madonna in her career, but one thing stayed the same – hashtags. They help people find your posts organically, which is great when you’re growing awareness and engagement for you or your brand. After all, you want people to notice and engage with what you’re posting – that’s why it’s called social media. Otherwise, it’s like having a conversation with yourself and you can do that alone at home (no judgement, we’ve been there too).

When you use hashtags (even just one),  you can drive up to 12.6% more engagement than posts without a hashtag. Imagine what several would do! Now that’s a party.

And you might bring people to the party with hashtags, but you can also join their social soiree, by clicking on the hashtags and interacting with their posts which use it. The more interaction you do, the more you can grow your own audience. 

But, how does that work? 

Well, when you’re spreading love (authentic love, not just meaningless comments which could have been made by a ‘bot), then people are more likely to hop over to your profile and engage with your content. Tit for tat. But it has to be for real because people really see through disingenuous comments.

 

 

Ok, ok, but how do I use hashtags in 2021?

We are so glad you asked.

There are a few ways to use them:

1. On every post and Instagram Story. You can post up to 30 on your Instagram posts and 10 on your Story. Rule of thumb – post your hashtags in the first comment on your posts, so it looks tidier and doesn’t interrupt your genius caption. On Stories, you can reduce the size of Instagram hashtags so they’re not taking up the entire Story (you don’t want to distract from your selfie).
   
2. In your profile: you can use a few to showcase who you are and what you do, to make it searchable.

 

How do I even find the right hashtags?

If you want some ideas on what’s relevant for your brand, then see what your competitors are and influencers with an Instagram hashtags search.

The 100 most popular hashtags of 2021

So onto the exciting bit….(drum roll….) the trending top Instagram hashtags for 2021 are:

 

1. #love
2. #instagood
3. #photooftheday
4. #fashion
5. #beautiful
6. #happy
7. #cute
8. #tbt
9. #like4like
10. #followme
11. #picoftheday
12. #follow
13. #me
14. #selfie
15. #summer
16. #art
17. #instadaily
18. #friends
19. #repost
20. #nature
21. #girl
22. #fun
23. #style
24. #smile
25. #food
26. #instalike
27. #likeforlike
28. #family
29. #travel
30. #fitness
31. #igers
32. #tagsforlikes
33. #follow4follow
34. #nofilter
35. #life
36. #beauty
37. #amazing
38. #instamood
39. #instagram
40. #photography
41. #vscocam
42. #sun
43. #photo
44. #music
45. #beach
46. #followforfollow
47. #bestoftheday
48. #sky
49. #ootd
50. #sunset
51. #dog
52. #vsco
53. #l4l
54. #makeup
55. #f4f
56. #foodporn
57. #hair
58. #pretty
59. #swag
60. #cat
61. #model
62. #motivation
63. #girls
64. #baby
65. #party
66. #cool
67. #lol
68. #gym
69. #design
70. #instapic
71. #funny
72. #healthy
73. #night
74. #tflers
75. #yummy
76. #flowers
77. #lifestyle
78. #hot
79. #instafood
80. #wedding
81. #fit
82. #handmade
83. #black
84. #pink
85. #일상
86. #blue
87. #work
88. #workout
89. #blackandwhite
90. #drawing
91. #inspiration
92. #home
93. #holiday
94. #christmas
95. #nyc
96. #london
97. #sea
98. #instacool
99. #goodmorning
100. #iphoneonly

Psst…it’s important to note that popular hashtags doesn’t always equal the best for you to use. In order to get maximum reach with your content, it’s wise to use a mix of big hashtags like the above, mid-sized (think 10,000 to 50,000) and more niche in your industry. We also recommend changing up your sets of hashtags often, as the Instagram algorithm doesn’t look favorably upon using the same ones all the time.

 

You can use Plann’s hashtags collection features to save a few sets of your favourite hashtags. Then, with the click of a button, you can easily pick and choose from them every time you go to post!

Want more help with hashtags?

Grab our ultimate hashtags cheat sheet, where we hash out everything you need to know about growing with hashtags.

 

Grab your free hashtags guide