Week 8 Part A: How To Expand Your Reach on Instagram by Using Hashtags

 Personally I believe my fictional business, Dark Sided Strength, could benefit from using visual media. Not only do I want Dark Sided Strength to be a gym but I'd love to have apparel and a line of supplements as well. My main focus will be on the gym facility though. All of those combined products require visual media in order to grab peoples attention. 

The first business I want to look into that is similar to mine is a gym called Corrupted Strength. They are a powerlifting gym with 35.3k followers on Instagram. They post about every 1-2 days and the posts that get the most attention are ones related to their apparel and ones that showcase their facility. Their last post was 10 hours prior to me writing this. They typically get an average of 2000 likes, some do much better up to 5000 likes and some do a little worse with 1000 likes. They receive a median of about 50-75 comments per post. I would say that Instagram is effective for them. Not necessarily from their own Instagram but from influencers that post pictures and videos at their gym. Still very effective for their business. They do use hashtags such as #Corruptedstrength and hashtags with the title of powerlifting events that they host. They do use hashtags the same way on every single post. Hashtags are located at the bottom of each caption. The hashtag does pop up when I search it via Instagram. Definitely a working formula for them.

The second business I'm looking into is a gym called Zoo Culture. They are a gym with 224k followers on Instagram. They post about once a day, occasionally twice a day. The posts that seem to get the most attention are when they post their female athletes. Their latest post was 11 hours prior to me writing this. They get an average of about 3000 likes but some posts go as low as 1000 likes and others have gotten up to 10k likes. They have a range of comments per post but average is about 20-30 comments. I'd defiantly say that Instagram is effective for them in the same way that it is effective for Corrupted Strength, through influencer's posts. They do use hashtags on each post. They are: #explore, #fitness, #fit, #gym, #fitspo, #healthymedia, #positivity, #viral, #abs, #instafit, #workout, #sportswear, #apparel, #gymwear, #lifestyle, #instagood, and #motivation. They use hashtags the same way on every post with them being located at the end of the caption. The hashtags are very popular and do pop up when searched on Instagram. Once again, Instagram works well for them.

The Third business I'm looking into is an athlete training center called Activ8Athlete. They have 11.2k followers on Instagram. They post every 1-3 days where they mainly show the athletes they train, events, and the staff. Their last post was 9 hours prior to this blog. They get an average of about 50 likes per post. Some posts get close to 100 likes and others can get as low as 17 likes. They only get about 3 - 8 comments per post. To me it doesn't seem like Instagram has been effective for them. Their business is still up and running but I would imagine that they get most of their clients from club sports teams, referrals from high school coaches, and maybe Tik Tok. Instagram is definitely not their main form of advertisement. As I'm scrolling through their posts I've only seen them use a hashtag on a couple of posts. The hashtag is #LetsGo. This could also be a big reason as to why their Instagram doesn't get much attention. That hashtag is very popular and does pop up when searched. They definitely need to incorporate more popular hashtags in order to get some more publicity.

The fourth and final business I'm looking into is a gym called The Dragons Lair. My personal favorite gym. They have 137k followers on Instagram. They post about every 2-4 days and mainly post about the members that attend their gym. Their last post was 4 days prior to me writing this. They get a median of about 500 - 700 likes per post. Some have less with about 200 likes but one post has 15k likes! I would say that Instagram is effective for them. On their personal instagram as well as influencers that post at their gym. They use a wide variety of hashtags on different posts. Some posts don't have any hashtags and it looks like the ones that do have hashtags get a lot more attention than the posts that don't. Some posts get a lot more comments than others but it looks like the average is about 20 comments per post. The posts with more comments are the posts with hashtags. The hashtags that they use are very popular and do pop up when searched. Instagram is for sure working for their business.

To wrap things up, I've already had the knowledge that hashtags get your posts more publicity. I've been using hashtags on all of the posts on my fitness instagram account ever since I started posting. The hashtags I use are: #fitness, #bodybuilding, #workout, #powerlifting, #lift, #college, #collegeworkouts, #nutrition, #diet, #nutritiontips, #cheatday, #studentathlete, #athlete, #gymshark, #alphalete, #fit, #motivation, #gym, #fitnessmotivation, #youngla, #buckedup, and #zyzz. For my gym's instagram I would add #darkside, #darksidedstrength, and #morethanagym. Honestly the only thing I can learn from the Instagrams I looked into is that hashtags do work, quality pictures catch attention, and being consistent with posting only has positive benefits. Overall, it was all very useful information to take in.