The first thought that probably comes to your mind is to search for trending hashtags inside an Instagram mobile app. That’s a good lead. Instagram gives us a few ways to discover what is trending. But that’s not the only way. I will also show you some interesting tools and apps worth using.

 

 

This video has some good tips on how to find trending hashtags on Instagram and what they’re all about.

Check the Instagram’s Explore Page

Explore Page is driven by an algorithm. It is a collection of posts and reels generated by your reactions, followers, and accounts you are following. You can see here content related to your interests. Everyone sees it differently.

It’s a great place to search for hashtags, but you will have to do it manually. Click posts and check their description. So it will be time-consuming.

The thing about the Explore page is that getting there is a huge, huge, huge booster in reaching a wider audience. It can be achieved by understanding and responding to the Instagram algorithm. There’s a couple of factors that decide if your content gets to the Explore page and one of them is trending Instagram hashtags.

Check the hashtag autocomplete feature

Instagram has a search engine. We can use it to search accounts, audio, places, and of course, tags. Anyone can use it to search for hashtags related to their interests.

While typing, the search engine also shows similar, popular hashtags. Furthermore, it shows those tags followed by accounts you are following.

An important note is that this feature suggests highly popular hashtags with millions of posts. Well, using such a popular tag is not the best idea. The chance that your content will disappear in the crowd is very high.

Use the social listening tool

Using a social listening tool is one of the most effective ways to discover popular Instagram hashtags dedicated to your business.

 

 

How does such a tool work?

In general, social listening tools collects in real-time mentions of predefined keywords from all over the web.

You can monitor literally any keyword. Here are a few examples of what you might track:

• The name of your company brand, product, or service
• Your branded hashtags
• Your campaign-specific hashtag
• Your CEO’s name or any other prominent team member
• Keywords related to your business niche
• Keywords that might be trending in the future

Based on that data, the tool defines the most popular hashtags related to your business.

 

Follow relevant hashtags

Of course, you can follow Instagram users, but did you know that you can also track hashtags? Yep, you can click “Follow” and top posts marked with a hashtag will appear on the home page. Those posts will probably include similar hashtags.

That’s why it’s a great way to discover popular and related hashtags. Also, it’s a fantastic source of content inspiration. All you have to do is read the description of posts and check whether they use hashtags that might suit your content. Again it’s a time-consuming solution that will require lots of your attention.

 

Follow relevant influencers

Influencers create trends on Instagram. That’s a fact. So why don’t you check what hashtags they use? There is nothing wrong with following their steps.

Instagram Stories also can contain hashtags. So do not forget to follow it too. Those influencers should feel what kind of content their audience wants to consume. So it’s essential to pick the right ones.

 

Explore websites with hashtags lists

Many web sources public lists of trending hashtags on Instagram. Keep in mind that those kinds of lists contain highly popular tags used by millions of users. As I mentioned before, it’s not always a good idea to add them to your Instagram posts. Furthermore, it’s hard to verify whether the lists are updated and trustworthy.

Still, many people search for the most popular hashtags in Google. So, if you are interested in such a list, I recommend those sources.

 

Use mobile apps

App Stores are full of mobile apps that generate popular hashtags for social media platforms. Since we all use Instagram on mobile, it’s logical that there are many mobile apps that prompt trending hashtags.

These mobile apps are based on the same features. You can search hashtags by category or generate them through typing keywords. What’s important you can filter the hashtags by the number of uses. I found this feature very helpful. Usually, free versions of hashtag generator mobile apps are full of ads that pop up full screen.

They work pretty nicely if you are looking for popular or the most popular hashtags. But will they detect that some hashtags are trending and gathering more and more interest of Instagram users? No, they don’t. Mobile apps list hashtags by popularity. That’s all.