How to Use Hashtag Targeting for Instagram Growth

Hashtag targeting grows an account by reaching the people who already post and browse under the tags your audience uses, instead of waiting for them to find your posts. It is for creators and small businesses who want steady, real followers and are choosing which hashtags to aim at; our guide to growing your Instagram organically shows where targeting fits, and hashtags for Instagram growth covers the tags you put on your own posts.

What is hashtag targeting?

Most hashtag advice is about your captions: you add tags so that people searching them see your post. Hashtag targeting turns that around. You pick hashtags your ideal follower uses, and those tags become a list of places to look for people.

Someone who posts under a tag about home baking has told you what they care about. If your account is about home baking, that person is a better fit than a random account, and more likely to follow you back once they see your profile.

At Flock, hashtag targeting sits next to account targeting. Account targeting starts from accounts you name, and hashtag targeting starts from tags you name. You can use both on the same account.

How does hashtag targeting work with Flock?

You give Flock the hashtags your audience uses. Flock then engages with people it finds through them, through follow and unfollow automation, so they notice your account. Whether they follow you is their choice.

A few details from the app:

• Filters narrow the list. You can filter targets by following count, follower count, number of posts, privacy, gender and NSFW content.
• Three modes. Auto, Follow and Unfollow.
• Like after follow. When someone follows back, Flock can like 1 to 3 of their posts.
• Followers are kept. People who follow you are whitelisted automatically, so Flock does not unfollow them. It also never unfollows accounts you followed yourself.

You can also keep a whitelist and a blacklist, and the weekly Instagram audits and growth analytics show how the account is moving.

How do you choose hashtags to target?

The tags that work best for targeting are rarely the biggest ones. Use these checks:

1. Pick tags your follower would use, not tags about you. A wedding photographer wants couples planning a wedding, so engagement and wedding-planning tags beat photography tags, which are full of other photographers.
2. Prefer specific over huge. A very broad tag mixes every kind of account. A narrower tag about one hobby, craft or problem gathers people with one shared interest.
3. Look at the recent posts under the tag. If they are mostly giveaways, spam or brands selling, the people behind them are unlikely to follow you.
4. Start with a short list and compare. Run a handful of tags, check which ones bring followers who stay and engage, then drop the weak ones.
5. Match your content. If a visitor lands on your profile and sees nothing about the tag's topic, they leave. Target the tags your last dozen posts actually serve.

If you are still working out who that follower is, how to find your target audience on Instagram is the step before this one.

Which filters matter most?

Filters decide which of the people found through a hashtag are worth engaging with.

• Follower and following counts. Accounts that follow thousands and have few followers often follow back by habit and rarely engage. Very large accounts rarely follow back at all.
• Posts. An account with no posts may be inactive or a placeholder.
• Privacy. Decide whether private accounts belong in your audience.
• Gender. Useful when your product or content is clearly aimed at one group.
• NSFW. Keeps adult accounts out of your targets.

Start loose, then tighten the filter that seems to be letting the wrong accounts through.

What hashtag targeting does not do

Plain limits, so you know what to expect:

• No location targeting. Flock cannot target by city or country. A local business can still use local hashtags as targets, but that is a hashtag, not a location filter.
• No posting for you. Flock does not write captions, choose the hashtags on your posts or publish content.
• No bought followers. Every follower is a real person who chose to follow. Nothing is bought in bulk.
• No guaranteed numbers. Results depend on your niche, your content and your targets. Any follower figure Flock gives is an estimate.

The plans and their estimates are on the pricing page, and common questions about safety and results are in the FAQ.

Tips to get more from your targets

• Review your target list every week or two, and swap out tags whose followers do not stay.
• Keep your bio clear about who the account is for. Targeting brings people to the profile; the profile makes them follow.
• Keep posting. New people who visit and see recent, on-topic posts are more likely to stay.
• Reply to comments from new followers. It turns a follow into a relationship.