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your November email

 
 

Hashtags 

or as your parents would call them: the pound key.

 

They are so easy to use and yet so often misused!

I’m here to clear that shit up for you.

There are four types of hashtags you should care about:

 

Mass Hashtags: Have over 1 million posts. 
Your post will get buried very quickly if you use these types of hashtags but they can be useful in your stories.
Examples: #wine #beer #winetasting #craftbeer #winelover #beerporn

 

Niche Hashtags: Have less than 500k posts
Your post is less likely to get buried under these hashtags and if you use the right ones, your ideal customer is likely searching for or following them.

Examples: #wineandfood #womeninwine #homebrewer #craftbrewery

 

Local Hashtags: What your ideal customer will likely post under when visiting an area and is what you should be using if you want to get local business.

Examples: #santabarbarawinecountry #visitsyv #seeSB #SanLuisObispo #SLOlife #PasoWine

 

Branded Hashtags: Hashtags that relate to your brand. These can be great if you are running a contest or you want to keep tabs on a series of posts. 
Examples: #cvcateam #braveandmaiden #craftandclustertravels #craftandclusterpoems #wordswithcvca

 

 

And here are the three ways you should be using these hashtags on Instagram:
 

In your Post: Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per post and you can place them in the caption for your post and/or in the comments of the post. I personally find that using between 7-12 hashtags is sufficient, but you do you.
Use Niche Hashtags and Local Hashtags in your posts.

 

In your Stories: More and more people are discovering new accounts by searching for stories.  You can use up to 10 hashtags per story, but I like using 1-4 hashtags.
Use Mass Hashtags in your stories.

 

To engage with: I recommend searching local and niche hashtags and engaging with (read: liking and commenting on) at least ten posts per day. I would also recommend following a few local and niche hashtags to make this engaging a little easier. 

Some of my favorite hashtags to follow are:
#santabarbarawinecountry #womeninwine #winesocial #beerphotography

A note on branded hashtags:

Sometimes your fans may not know that you have an Instagram so will use a branded hashtag or your location’s geotag instead.

For this reason, I recommend searching any hashtag that could be related to your business, as well as your geotag, and commenting on/liking the posts under them. 
 

Speaking of geotags:

Be sure you are geotagging both your posts and your stories even if you aren't a brick and mortar business. Often when a person is researching where they want to go on vacation, they will search the “places” tab on Instagram.  This was how Bobby and I found a kick-ass little brewery in Rome called Jungle Juice Brewing (I highly recommend it, btw, delicious beer). 

If you are like me and don't have a specific location associated with your brand, use a more general geotag (I often use Santa Barbara Wine Country or Santa Ynez Valley).

Always geotag! You will show up in more searches when you do!

Craft & Cluster Updates

Headshots

I have been getting increasingly more frequent requests for headshots and am thinking I may need to make a post on Instagram about them.  The common phrase uttered when I receive these requests is, "I had to send the people at this conference I'm speaking at a selfie I took on my phone, it is so embarrassing. I don't want to have to do that again."
You don't know you need them until you need them, so give me a call and we will make some magic so you're prepared for future features.

Instagram LIVE

I am reinstating my monthly Instagram LIVEs this month!
November's guest will be Rachel Silkowski, owner & winemaker of 
Say When Wine and Weird Parties.  
Join us at 6 PM PST on Wednesday, November 6 to ask Rachel questions and to listen to us chat wine, branding, and social media.

 

Craft & Cluster at Home

Bobby has officially started his homebrewing instagram @hopfunk! Check it out for all your homebrewing information and shenanigans.

Otto & Jackson have been entertaining the masses with photos of them sleeping in sunpatches. They are proud of the work they are doing.

The chickens are still molting. We are averaging ~0.86 eggs per day, which is quite a blow to two people who like eggs as much as we do. We ask that you keep us in your thoughts at this difficult time.

 

Until next month, my friend!

-Heather