Check before using Instagram Hashtags that may be Banned

Using Instagram to market your private practice will help reach more potential clients.

But… not if you do this on Valentine’s day or other special days of the year. So let’s look into this DO NOT do this on Instagram lesson.

With Valentine’s Day coming I wanted to be sure you do NOT use the hashtag, #valentinesday, on Instagram.

WHY?

It is what some call a “banned hashtag.”

This means posts with that hashtag in the content may be hidden.

The reason is because too many people have used the hashtag with “not appropriate content” or “in an inappropriate way.” Often this means they violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines for content.

Translation – it means the content may include sp-am or worse.

It means people are using the hashtag to tag on to the traffic and popularity of that hashtag, but with content that may not be following the community guidelines.

And, hey, it’s their sandbox, so Instagram can make these rules.

You do not want to partake in this because using banned hashtags could get your account flagged as … well, you know that famous canned meat (sp-am)!! 😁 It can also limit your reach and engagement, i.e. people not seeing your content – which makes all your effort a waste of time.

Now, there are no easy ways to find a list online on a website because it can change so often. It’s also time consuming to search every hashtag before you use it. What I suggest is listing out the most common hashtags that you use and searching each of those every month or so. (I do use a program called Flick to track my hashtags and do research on them as well, but even in there they do not list out the banned ones.)

HOW ELSE CAN YOU DETERMINE IF AN INSTAGRAM HASHTAG IS BANNED?

Use Instagram’s Search feature. Especially for holidays like Valentine’s Day.

You can check out any hashtag in their search by entering the tag with the # symbol in the “Search area” on Instagram. The results, if there is an issue, will look like this image below indicating that a hashtag has been banned.

​A couple of other options for hashtags to consider instead, are shown in the pics below. They still show the content because fewer people use them but also they have not been targeted by those trying to hijack the hashtag for other reasons.

This next image has a tag that may be a better option to have more reach, but can be hard to compete when there are almost 1 million posts with it.

​Add the heart and the hashtags is totally new and more unique, but with less reach, however, that means you have a shot at ranking for that hashtag. Mixing hashtags is always best – some low in posts, some high and that in some locations, local, topical and unique ones too!

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This shows the numbers of posts when you add the year to the words. This is also a good way to use a hashtag with more than 1000 posts.

​What’s your Action Step today?

The important thing for you to do as we head into Valentine’s Day, and you have planned marketing content for Valentine’s Day messages with hashtags is to: Make sure you change / edit any content scheduled using that banned hashtag #valentinesday. Better safe than sorry!

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