We all know what a hashtag is, but are you using them enough?

Niche down on your hashtags. Last time I looked, the hashtag #art had 944M posts. The hashtag #bayareaart had 231K posts, so your chances of being seen are better using the latter hashtag.

Use a combination of popular and less used hashtags for your niche.

I used to like to max out all 30 hashtags, seeing each one as an opportunity to be discovered by people who really want to see my content, however, the current recommendation by Instagram is around five to seven (this is subject to change).

You can put hashtags in a Reel in the description, or in a post you can place them in the comments section to be more discreet. You can do this by typing three to five periods, each with a line break after the period, which forces the comment to collapse and not look so long and obvious.

Keep a list of hashtags for subjects related to your niche in your notes app, and copy and paste them in to your post. For example, if I upload a vineyard painting, I will find my 'vineyard hashtag' list in my notes app, and copy and paste it in to my post.

Find relevant hashtags by typing in various subjects right in the Instagram app. It will help by making suggestions, and showing you how many people are following the hashtag. Type your subject in to the search bar, then tap 'tags' at the top, and it will list them all out for you.

With organic reach declining, it;s becoming more and more important to utilize hashtags to be seen. If you are going to go through all the work to make a beautifully crafted post, finish it off with a nice boost of relevant hashtags!