The Instagram Hashtag
By now, you should know what hashtags are on Instagram. Basically, they're a quick way to help you share and publicly archive your images to the hash tagged word. (Read more about it on Instagram's blog here). Instagrams blog post even states that hashtags are a way to "find new followers and share your photos with more people
Instagram Hashtags Are Broken And Tricky
The Hashtag system was a great way to share your images on Instagram; that was until Instagram hit it's global popularity status. Instagram recently announced that it has hit the 300 million monthly active user milestone making it the premier photo sharing service of the world.
The popularity and sheer number of active users has essentially made the hashtag pretty bad at it's job. Under the more popular hashtags (e.g. #vsco, #vscocam), your image will get flooded into oblivion in a matter of microseconds.
Let's be real here, people searching for hashtags won't ever look at more than the first 30-50 images. If you post an image and within 1 minute your photo is immediately pushed beyond the first few pages of results, no one will see your image.
The Trick To Using Hashtags Properly
Ideally, hashtags are meant to...