The Best Time to Add Hashtags To an Instagram Post

The Best Time to Add Hashtags To an Instagram Post

Hashtags can be added to regular Instagram posts at any time. Even years after the post first went live. It’s generally better to add them later than to not add them at all. But if you are starting fresh, don’t delay! 

Here’s why hashtags should be added at the time of posting, or as soon as possible after: 

The time stamp for your hashtag will be noted as the time the of the original post. 

This is true whether you post the hashtags in the caption or the comments of your posts, and whether you post the hashtags when you post the image, or add them in,  two years later. 

Every image on instagram has a time stamp. The "recent" tab of hashtagged feeds shows images in the order they were originally posted. When you add hashtags at the time of posting, your posts will show up in the feed for that hashtag in real time, as fresh posts. 

Depending on how active the hashtag feed is, your posts will then remain visible or be buried, as new content with the same hashtag comes in. Popular content remains visible for a little longer, in a special “Top” posts section of the feed. 

Adding a hashtag to a post days, months or years later will not cause that post to show at the top of the hashtag feed for that post. 

When you hashtag after the fact, the post will be added to the hashtag feed, retroactively. What this means is that your post will show up in the feed for that hashtag, but you will have to scroll back in time to find it there. 

Your retroactively tagged post may still show up on the first page of results under the following circumstances:

  •  If the hashtag feed is not particularly active
  •  If your post is super popular, and qualifies as a “Top” post for the hashtag. 

 The choice is yours whether to add hashtags retroactively. 

 

It’s important to note that Instagram story hashtags cannot be added retroactively. They can only be added at the time of crafting the post. 

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