Author: christine

It’s no secret, the internet is full of spam. Unfortunately, social media is no exception. In an effort to combat spam and spammers, Instagram has bots that ban certain hashtags. If you’ve had an Instagram post that doesn’t perform well, chances are that you might have used a banned hashtag. Today, let’s take a look at how you can find out what hashtags are banned.

How to Find Banned Hashtags on Instagram

Banned hashtags change daily, so there’s no single site that can keep an accurate list of all banned hashtags. However, it only takes a minute to check a hashtag. Here’s how:

1. Go to Instagram, and click the magnifying glass at the bottom of the screen. 
2. Enter a hashtag in the search bar, tap ‘Tags’, and click the ‘Search’ button.
3. Click on the hashtag you are looking up, then tap on ‘Recent’. If you see a message that posts are hidden instead of seeing recent posts, you’ve located a banned hashtag. 

A Few Surprising Banned Hashtags

In doing research for this post, I found a handful of surprising banned hashtags. (Remember, these are currently banned but may not be banned forever.)

• #adulting
• #boho
• #dm
• #direct
• #hotweather
• #humpday
• #parties
• #snapchat

Putting This to Use in Everyday Marketing

It’s pretty obvious that if you want to do well on Instagram; you should avoid using banned hashtags. Using them could get your account flagged as spam and it could seriously limit your reach and engagement. But, it’s is pretty time intensive to search every hashtag before you use it. I’d suggest listing out the most common hashtags that you use and searching each of those every month or so.

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I’ve talked a lot about social media practices on the blog. However, the other day I got an email from a reader asking what ‘social media engagement’ means. Today, let’s take a lot at what social media engagement is. More importantly, we have to talk about why it’s important.

What is Social Media Engagement?

Social media engagement is simply the number of likes, reactions, comments, shares, and follows that your social media post or account receives.

Why is Social Media Engagement Important?

All the social media networks run on formulas called algorithms. The algorithms are programmed to show content that people find useful. Usefulness can be equated to likes, reactions, comments, shares, and follows. So, if you post something and no one interacts with the content – it’s reach (the amount of people that see it) will be low. Similarly, if you post something and people leave comments and reactions – the reach will be higher.

A Challenge for You

Now that we’ve talked about social media engagement, I have one challenge for you. Before you publish any content on social media, ask yourself: ‘Will my customers engage with this?’ If so, post away. If not, edit it, then post it.

When you ask yourself, ‘Will my customers engage with this?’ You may find yourself posting less content. That’s ok. You’ll find yourself doing better on social media if you post more meaningful content. Quality over quantity – but still try to post once per day.

Looking for help with what to post? Head to this post.

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Social media marketing is an important part of all small businesses.

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