How to Find Popular Hashtags on Instagram

Finding the right hashtags to get your Instagram posts discovered can be a frustrating guessing game. You know they matter for reach and engagement, but figuring out which ones to use feels like shooting in the dark. This guide breaks down simple, repeatable methods for finding popular and effective hashtags that will connect your content with the right audience.

Start with Instagram's Built-In Tools

You don't need fancy, expensive tools to begin your hashtag research. Instagram itself has powerful, built-in features that are perfect for finding what you need right inside the app. This is the best place to start because the data comes directly from a real-time source.

Go Straight to the Instagram Search Bar

The simplest method is often the most effective. Instagram’s search function is a fantastic starting point for identifying relevant hashtags and gauging their popularity.

Here’s a step-by-step process:

1. Tap the search icon to go to the Explore page.
2. Tap the search bar at the top and then select the "Tags" tab.
3. Type in a broad keyword that describes your post, brand, or industry. If you’re a photographer, you might start with "photography." If you run a coffee shop, try "coffee."
4. As you type, Instagram will auto-populate a list of related hashtags along with the number of posts for each one. This number tells you how popular a tag is. For example, #photography has hundreds of millions of posts, while #photographylovers has a smaller - but still very large - audience.

Pay close attention to these numbers. A tag with 50 million posts is incredibly competitive, and your content might get buried within seconds. A tag with 50,000 posts is less crowded, giving you a better chance to be seen by a more engaged, niche audience.

Discover Gold with "Related" Hashtags

Once you’ve searched for a primary hashtag, Instagram does something incredibly helpful: it gives you even more ideas. After tapping on a hashtag from the search results (like #travelblogger), look just below the "Follow" button. You’ll see a horizontally scrolling list of suggested tags that Instagram considers closely related.

For #travelblogger, you might see suggestions like:

• #travelblogging
• #traveldiaries
• #borntotravel
• #travelcommunity

This "Related" feature is a great way to drill down from a very broad term to find more specific, community-focused hashtags your target audience is actively using. Jot down the ones that seem like a good fit and have a reasonable post volume for your account's size.

Learn from People Who Are Already Winning

Why reinvent the wheel? The top accounts in your niche - both influencers and direct competitors - have likely already spent countless hours figuring out which hashtags perform best. You can benefit from their hard work by doing a little strategic research.

Analyze Influencers in Your Niche

Find 5 to 10 creators or respected accounts in your industry whose content style and audience you admire. Don't look at celebrity-level influencers, but rather "micro" or "mid-tier" influencers who have built a strong, connected community. Go to their profiles and look at their recent posts. What hashtags are they using consistently?

Note a few things:

• The Mix: Do they use a few giant hashtags mixed with smaller, more-specific ones? (Most successful accounts do).
• Consistency: Are there certain hashtags that appear on almost every post? These are likely their core, brand-aligned tags that deliver results for them.
• Variety: How do they switch up their hashtags based on the actual content of the photo or video?

This isn't about copying their list verbatim. It’s about understanding the logic behind their strategy and finding inspiration for hashtags you may have never considered.

Check Out Your Direct Competitors

This tactic is similar to analyzing influencers, but the focus is on businesses that offer products or services similar to yours. If you run a local bakery in Austin, see what hashtags other successful bakeries in Austin are using. They might be tapping into location-specific tags like #austineats or #atxfoodie that you can easily adopt.

Looking at competitors can also highlight community tags specific to your field. A handmade jewelry brand might discover that other similar brands are using tags like #makersgonnamake or #shopsmalllove to connect with an audience that values handcrafted goods. This kind of research gives you a direct look into conversations your potential customers are already part of.

A Smarter Hashtag Strategy: It’s All About the Mix

Finding "popular" hashtags isn't just about grabbing the ones with the most posts. In fact, relying solely on mega-popular hashtags is one of the biggest mistakes people make. Your post will get pushed down the feed almost instantly by the sheer volume of new content. A truly effective strategy uses a deliberate mix of different types of hashtags, each with a specific purpose.

Imagine it as a pyramid. You want a few giant tags at the top, a healthy number of mid-sized community tags in the middle, and a solid base of hyper-specific, niche tags.

Level 1: The Goliaths (Large Hashtags: 500k – 1M+ Posts)

These are the broad, high-volume terms like #fitness, #art, or #marketing. Think of them as a quick, massive burst of visibility.

• Pro: They can give your post an initial spike in reach from a very wide audience.
• Con: Competition is fierce. Your post will be seen for a very short time in the "Recent" feed before it’s buried under an avalanche of other content.
• How to Use Them: Use 2-3 of these per post. Don’t build your entire strategy around them, but they’re good to include for a potential short-term boost.

Level 2: The Sweet Spot (Community Hashtags: 10k - 500k Posts)

This is where the real engagement happens. These tags are targeted enough to reach a specific audience but still popular enough to get you solid visibility. They describe a community or a shared interest. For a post about home decor, instead of just #homedecor (40M+ posts), you might use #mybohohome or #howyouhome.

• Pro: High level of engagement from a relevant audience. Content stays visible for longer, giving you a better chance to be discovered.
• Con: You still need great content to stand out, but the playing field is far more level.
• How to Use Them: These should form the largest part of your hashtag list. Aim for 7-15 of these per post.

Level 3: The Hyper-Niche (Niche-Specific Hashtags: Under 10k Posts)

These hashtags are for speaking directly to your ideal customer. They describe your specific location, a unique product, or a very particular interest. A vegan bakery in Brooklyn isn't just using #vegan, they're also using #brooklynvegan or #vegancupcakesnyc.

• Pro: Extremely low competition and a highly targeted audience. People following these tags are very passionate and more likely to engage.
• Con: The overall reach will be much lower, but the quality of that reach is far higher.
• How to Use Them: Include 3-5 of these to connect deeply with a smaller, more dedicated group of followers.

Proven Best Practices for Using Your Found Hashtags

Once you have a list of well-researched hashtags, how you use them also matters. A few best practices can make the difference between looking professional and looking spammy.

How Many Hashtags Should You Use?

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. For years, the conventional wisdom was to use all 30. More recently, Instagram’s own advice has been to use between 3-5 hyper-relevant tags. What's the right answer? It depends, and you should test it.

A good starting point for most accounts is between 8 and 15 well-researched hashtags per post, drawing from the "sweet spot" and "hyper-niche" categories, with maybe one or two large ones mixed in. This approach looks clean and signals to the algorithm exactly what your content is about without looking desperate. Experiment with more or less and see what drives the best results for your account.

Caption or First Comment?

Should you put your hashtags directly in your caption or hide them in the first comment? Functionally, it makes zero difference to the algorithm. Instagram will index your post for those hashtags regardless of where they are. This decision is purely about aesthetics.

• In the Caption: It's simple and means your hashtags are attached to your post forever, even if comments get deleted. To keep it clean, you can type a few dots on separate lines after your main caption to push the hashtag block "below the fold."
• In the First Comment: This keeps your caption looking super clean and focused on your message. The only downside is a slight delay in getting the comment posted, and it’s slightly more work.

Most brands today prefer the clean look of putting them in the first comment, but either method works just fine. Choose the one that fits your brand’s style.

Final Thoughts

Finding the right hashtags isn’t about chasing a secret formula, it’s about doing solid research using Instagram’s own tools, learning from your peers, and building a balanced strategy. By mixing broad tags with community-focused and niche-specific ones, you give every post the best possible chance to reach people who genuinely care about what you have to share.

Researching and organizing hashtags for every Reel, Story, and post across multiple platforms can feel like a chore. At Postbase, we built our content planner so you can easily create and save hashtag lists, and then customize them for each platform when you schedule. Instead of copy-pasting from a messy notes app, you can focus on creating great content, knowing your hashtag strategy is handled.