You may have realised that using hashtags on Instagram is one of the best ways to grow your school’s Instagram following. It will also help people find your school when they are searching on Instagram.
But many school marketers go about using Instagram hashtags the wrong way. They focus on those with a high number of results on Instagram, which are often too generic. This means that they have little chance of their Instagram post appearing in the search results, and that the people using those hashtags are not really ready to take action, as they are not making a specific search.
So someone searching for #SurreySchools is looking for a school in Surrey, where as someone just searching #schools or #education is not looking for anything very specific. (Incidentally, the same rules apply for Search Engine Optimisation).
If you are wondering which Instagram hashtags to use for school marketing, I have researched a list of useful hashtags specifically for schools, which you can download for free below. It also covers some of the options for local search, which are particularly important for day schools and state schools.
Note that this list focuses on those that parents are most likely to use, rather than those often used by teachers looking for educational materials or information.
If you would like to learn more about how to use Instagram to market your school, details of our Social Media Marketing for Schools training and workshops are here.