Instagram Hashtag Ideas: A Practical Way to Build Relevant Hashtag Sets

Build more relevant Instagram hashtag sets by combining topic, audience, location and content-format ideas.

Instead of copying the same hashtag block onto every Instagram post, build a set that reflects the specific content. This makes the tags more useful to readers and reduces irrelevant repetition.

Four sources of hashtag ideas

1. Topic: what is the post actually about?
2. Audience: who is the content for?
3. Location: does a city, region or country matter?
4. Format or intent: tutorial, review, recipe, inspiration, before-and-after, guide?

Example

For a Manchester café review, you could brainstorm around coffee, cafés, Manchester, local food, brunch and reviews instead of pasting unrelated “viral” tags.

Check current relevance

Hashtag usage and platform discovery features change. Search the tag in Instagram before publishing if it is important to your strategy. Avoid misleading tags that have nothing to do with the post.

Related guides

Read Hashtag Generator Guide, Instagram Bio Ideas and Instagram Fonts Guide.

MetaSEO guides are written to help users understand and use our tools. Platform features and policies can change, so verify time-sensitive details with the relevant platform.