Getting noticed as a filmmaker on Instagram isn’t easy. With over 1 billion users competing for attention, your film samples can easily get lost in the flood of content generated on the platform.
Instagram hashtags promise a way out of this – an opportunity to get your films to display for relevant keywords to a targeted audience.
However, if not used properly Instagram hashtags can annoy your audience at worst and lower your visibility at best.
With that in mind, here are some tips on how to get the most out of Instagram hashtags for filmmakers.
How Instagram hashtags work
While every Instagram filmmaker knows what a hashtag is and many users make routine use of them, misunderstanding how hashtags work is equally common.
Hashtags are what they say they are, image tags using a # paired with a keyword.
Adding a hashtag to an image has two primary functions:
- It makes that image appear in searches Instagram users run for that hashtag.
- It allows Instagram users to click on the hashtag on an image and view related images using the same hashtag.
A secondary function of hashtags is they help Instagram users to categorize images and clarify for viewers what they are looking at – for example, a #fashionshoot rather than a random image of an attractive person.
Using Instagram hashtags for videographers
The most common mistake made when using Instagram hashtags is thinking that bigger is better.
Target as many of the most popular hashtags as possible and you’ll expose your work to a potential audience of millions – or so the thinking goes.
The opposite is true. The more general and popular a hashtag is, the less likely it is that an image using it will be seen at all.
That’s because Instagram uses two ways to display search results for hashtags:
- The default view is to display ‘Top posts’ – the posts with the most likes and engagement for that hashtag.
- There is also the option to view search results by ‘Recent posts’, the images posted most recently using that hashtag.
Unless you already have a large following and a lot of engagement with all your posts, you’re not going to appear in the ‘Top posts’ section for a popular hashtag.
While you will appear in the ‘Recent posts’ section for a popular hashtag, it’ll only be visible to users who view the search results in the split second before your post is buried under a flood of new content.
The key to using Instagram hashtags for your films is therefore not to focus on popular filmmaker hashtags, but instead to focus on more specific hashtags which offer you better visibility.
Achieving this is straightforward. Make your hashtags specific. If you film buskers in Berlin, include the keywords ‘buskers’ and ‘Berlin’ in your post’s hashtag.
Taking this approach will automatically reduce competition levels for your hashtag, which will not only give you a better chance of securing a ‘Top posts’ slot but will also give you more airtime in the ‘Recent posts’ section.
More importantly, your work will appear for searches by people who are specifically looking for what you have to offer, which will increase engagement with your content.
You will get far more value out of 10 Instagram users who are genuinely engaged with your work than you will from 1000 users who are mostly indifferent to it.
How many filmmaker Instagram hashtags to use
When it comes to how many Instagram hashtags to use, it’s once again a case of quality over quantity. Use as many hashtags as it makes sense to use for the content you are posting.
If you keep your hashtags topical and on-point you will never need to max out Instagram’s quota of 30 hashtags per image.
How do I appear in the top posts?
Appearing in the ‘Top posts’ slot in an Instagram search is a numbers game.
The greater the number of posts for the hashtag, the greater the amount of engagement that you will need with your content to appear in this section.
To get a rough idea of how many post likes you need to appear in the top posts, take the number of posts for the hashtag and divide it by 1,000.
So, a hashtag with a million posts is going to need you to come up with at least 1,000 likes before you secure a spot in the ‘Top posts’ section.
Meanwhile you’ll need far less engagement to appear in the top posts section for a hashtag that has 20,000 posts in it.
Instagram hashtags for filmmakers
When you started reading this you were probably hoping to find a list of filmmaker hashtags you could cut and paste into Instagram when posting your films.
By now you’ll have realized that a list of popular filmmaker Instagram hashtags is at best a guide for helping you construct your own list of the best hashtags for video production.
You can also use a popular hashtags list to get an idea of which hashtags are overly competitive and should therefore be avoided when tagging your images.
| Hashtag | Number of posts |
| #cinematography | 11,550,842 |
| #filmmaking | 10,222,106 |
| #filmmaker | 9,360,994 |
| #videography | 9,188,334 |
| #setlife | 5,507,519 |
| #videographer | 4,629,989 |
| #shortfilm | 4,616,291 |
| #videoproduction | 2,954,159 |
| #indiefilm | 2,461,821 |
| #filmmakers | 2,131,533 |
| #filmproduction | 1,743,729 |
| #creativedirector | 1,407,266 |
| #instafilm | 900,990 |
| #productionlife | 862,563 |
| #filmmakerslife | 572,505 |
| #filmmakersworld | 335,276 |
| #filmnerd | 101,962 |
| #instafilmmaking | 3,991 |
| #instafilmmaker | 2,168 |
Get discovered on Cherrydeck
While Instagram videography hashtags can be a useful marketing tool, they were designed to categorize images and make them searchable – not to connect filmmakers with potential clients.
That’s where Cherrydeck comes into the picture. Cherrydeck is a specialist online platform designed to connect creators and potential clients.
Sign up with Cherrydeck and you can quickly and easily set up a profile that will make your portfolio visible to users searching for filmmaker services.
Besides getting the attention of the right people, you’ll also benefit from:
- Being able to discover new commissions and collaborations made available on our platform.
- Tools to boost your Instagram reach and following.
- Discounts on software for creative professionals via our Partner Deals program.
- The ability to present your events to our large creative community.
Visit Cherrydeck now to sign up. ?
