6 Jun, 2019
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There’s no doubt that the health and fitness world has been changed by Instagram.
The ways we get health and fitness information, inspiration, and motivation have changed drastically over the last decade and scrolling Instagram has replaced chatting with a trainer or coach.
This means as a health or fitness business it has never been easier to get in front of fitness fanatics.
Related: The Top 15 Fitness Influencers on Instagram
Instagram is the perfect tool to reach specific audiences like gym bunnies, macro counters, and yogi devotees. Unlike traditional advertising, you can start as small as you like – with little or no budget – and still gain traction and get your business in front of thousands of eyes.
These effects of social media ‘fitspiration’ are even the subject of scientific studies.
Even for someone totally new to marketing, the stats are astounding:
As a fitness business, you should definitely be after a piece of that pie!
Understanding which are the best hashtags to use for your health, fitness or wellbeing account is paramount. The most common hashtags are not always the best for your account and it might be a less popular but more localized hashtag that gets the right eyes on your feed.
Related: Learn how to track your best hashtags with our guide on Instagram KPIs
Want to get your health or fitness brand in front of as many users as possible? Read on to learn more about the top fitness hashtags to use to make Insta work for you.
There’s a whole audience of people out there dedicated to fitness that might not subscribe to a certain gym, style of workout, or diet. If you’re looking to promote your activewear, protein powder, or online workouts then general fitness hashtags are a great place to start.
Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular fitness hashtags on Insta:
It’s time to start thinking smart about your tags. While there is no harm in using wildly popular hashtags like #fitness (342 million posts at last check!), it’s a good idea to also throw some more specific hashtags in there.
Jump on board with this trending fitness hashtag – like the obstacle race @Tough_Mudder.
Doesn’t hurt to offer people something of value on your post – practical tips are likely to garner more engagement.
Good inspiration to help encourage those hitting a mental wall.
Want to target a niche audience? Get specific and you are more likely to make real connections. We like this cheeky hashtag.
A local hashtag will help you reach a local audience – especially if your business is a face to face business (personal training or physiotherapy, sports coaching).
With an estimated 300 million practitioners worldwide, yoga has come a long way since its founding in the early 1900s. If you’re one of the countless businesses that emerged to support yogis, knowing how to get their attention on Instagram is key.
Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular yoga hashtags:
A hashtag started by Insta star @Yoga_Girl – an incredible example of an owned hashtag that went totally viral.
A modern style of yoga started by @TaraStiles – she effectively uses the hashtag and her students and followers around the world follow suit.
Not everyone who wears yoga pants or steps on to a yoga mat can do a perfect Dancer’s Pose or perhaps even touch their toes. You don’t want to alienate a big group of people by only targeting people at the top of their game. We love how @yoga_by_tanu shows you don’t need to be super bendy to enjoy yoga.
An example of getting specific and niche – a smaller community, and therefore easier to target. And pretty inspirational too! Check out @Acroyogaddicts having some fun here.
Just for the laughs – if you need a break from the serious side of social media, this yoga hashtag is enough to make even the most serious yogi wobble. @jenns_yoga isn’t taking herself too seriously here.
Millions of people around the world pull on their running shoes and pound the pavement every day. There’s a massive and active community of runners on Instagram and countless business beyond the big names that have emerged with products to help runners.
Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular running hashtags on Insta:
Drilling down into the specific rather than the broad can be helpful in targeting a new audience and new potential customers.
A global phenomenon where free, 5km, timed runs are held around the world. They’re open to all levels and about community rather than winning. Using local #ParkRun tags is a great way to tap into your local running community.
Strava is a mobile app and website connect millions of runners and cyclists, allowing them to compete virtually and complete challenges. By using this hashtag you can tap into an existing community – like this NYC based running coach has here.
You can have some fun with this running hashtag – and allows you to inject some personality into your account.
It never hurts to be able to piggyback on an existing day specific hashtag.
These are for the gym junkies, #GirlsWhoLift, and those who plan their weeks around their workouts.
With an ever-increasing number of people getting fit, hitting the gym and trying new workouts, businesses need to be strategic with how they get in front of this expanding audience.
Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular exercise hashtags on Insta:
This hashtag started by Australian activewear company Lorna Jane (@Lornajaneactive), now used by a massive community of health and fitness devotees.
Want to tap into the huge – and ever-growing – Crossfit community, estimated to be in the millions worldwide? Try this Crossfit specific hashtag. (For those fresh to the industry, It stands for workout of the day.)
Tap into this strong and positive community of strong women lifting each other up.
It always helps if you can value add for your audience, so any practical tips are handy to get in front of more eyes. If you are a PT or strength coach try this out like @BaseBodyBabes have here.
We love a hashtag that allows you to connect to a local community.
Caring about what you eat is no longer the domain of supermodels and athletes – there’s plenty of office workers around the world toting their mason jar of zoodles, engaging in meal prep, and counting their macros – all of which is good news for your nutrition business.
Hashtags might seem like just a bit of fun but if you want to get your business in front of the right eyes but it pays to spend some time getting your hashtag strategy right. A vegan pea protein will have a different ideal customer than a meal prep company specializing in keto – the right hashtags will help you reach your right customer.
Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular nutrition hashtags on Insta:
Want to tap into an audience who know their golden lattes from their Matcha tea?
Here’s a wrap up of our top five nutrition and health hashtags.
Who doesn’t want to look at beautiful rainbow-hued dishes?
Another example of using a hashtag to get to a more niche audience than broader healthy eating tags. If you make a product that might be perfect for kids lunchboxes then try using more specific hashtags.
Just. Eat. Real. Food. Can’t get more simple than that. Tap into an audience that wants healthy and simple food.
Matcha Mylkbar in Melbourne successfully uses this hashtag to connect to a thriving vegan community in their local town.
Coconut Bowls (@coconutbowls) used this hashtag as the perfect marketing strategy for their bowls specifically made for smoothie bowls.
It’s all good and well to know which hashtags will increase your visibility and get more eyes on your brand’s page. Hashtags help make your post searchable by category, location and helps you connect with people who want to find your brand.
Related: How to Create an Awesome Instagram Fitness Bio
Spout Social found that Instagram posts with at least one hashtag tend to receive 12.6% more engagement.
But it’s not quite as simple as throwing on a few hashtags on any old post. Here are a few of our top tips to make hashtags work for you.
Sure you might think that chiseled abs and the newest Lululemon gear is sexier than data, but leveraging when your users are actually online is what will set you apart from your competition.
This simple tip will save you oodles of time. Keep a simple note with your standard hashtags – you could have a few versions for the different kind of posts you regularly post.
A simple note in your phone or computer will do the trick. It also means if and when your team grows you can easily share preferred hashtags.
You’ll still need to adjust and refine for each post to make sure the hashtags are relevant to each post, but at least this will give you a head start. You don’t want to simply use the exact same lengthy list of hashtags again and again, but having a list to choose from can help if you’re like many small biz owners out there and trying to do it all yourself!
There may not be a perfect number that applies to all Insta accounts, brands, or industries (we wish it were that simple!) but, it is worth having a strategy to help decide how many your users seem to prefer.
Thirty is the limit of hashtags you can use on a post (ten for Stories) but that’s not to say more is better. In this Bustle post they suggest there is no magic number and it’s all about finding what works best for you.
Sprout Social suggests looking at how many posts similar brands are using, and then also tracking your engagement using a different number of hashtags.
While a popular hashtag suggests your post will be seen by the masses, there’s the danger using something too broad and having your post get buried in an ocean of content.
Try using more niche or specific hashtags if you want to reach more potential customers rather than just more eyeballs. So if you are a smoothie bar in Bondi, Sydney try #SmoothieBowls, #VeganEats #SmoothieLovers #BondiHealth rather than just the generic and more popular #CleanEats. Using location-specific tags also helps here – make sure people know where to find you.
Want to find out more about which Instagram metrics to track, and some handy tips and how-tos? Check out our earlier post Top Instagram Metrics to Track.
What to dive deeper? There’s plenty of blogs out there to help you learn more about best hashtag practice. Check out Hootsuite’s Hashtag Tips and Tricks, Sprout Social’s How to Grow Your Audience With Hashtags for Instagram and Later’s Instagram Hashtags: The Ultimate Guide (2019 Update).
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