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

From researching the Instagram pages of local, national, small, and large breweries I have come to the conclusion that visual media most definitely works for my type of business. This digital marketing style is perfect for craft brewing as beer is all about community, coming together over a pint, and enjoying a cold beer on a beautiful day. Visual media is the ideal way of telling people about your brand identity, promoting the beer you are currently drinking or showing off your taproom.


I chose the following businesses that are in the same field of business as mine:

Societe Brewing Company: Instagram seems to be working effectively for Societe. They don't typically use hashtags, which is a little surprising considering they are a local brewery and not nationwide. Although they are a local brewery they still have a big fan base, currently sitting at 54.2K followers. They post at least once a day on their page and multiple times a day on their story. Usually, their posts are beer-related but also feature the taco truck that they are partnered with. The most responses from their viewers are on content where they are advertising new beer releases and special events. The last post that they made was today, 3/16 and it was a post that featured the taco truck they are partnered with along with one of their beers. The post was captioned, "Tag your favorite person to grab tacos and beer with and tell them to meet you at Societe." This post received 11 comments, mostly consisting of people tagging others.

Embolden Beer Company: Embolden is currently the newest craft brewery in San Diego. Instagram seems to be working so far so good for them. The most used hashtags on their posts are, #craftbeer, #sandiego, #instadrink, #supportlocal, and #brewery. They are still building their followers and are currently at 2,136 followers. They are active on Instagram and post once a day, as well as multiple times a day on their story. Most of their posts are advertising new beers that are being released, but they also post consistently about their unique tropical oasis set up in their beer garden. Their last post was today, 3/16 and it was advertising $1 off Stouts and Lagers all day long on St. Patrick's Day. The post was captioned, "Come out to the greenest brewery in San Diego for St Patty's day! They have not yet received any comments on this post.

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company: Sierra Nevada is one of the most well-known breweries around the world, so it is no surprise that Instagram is highly effective for them. They rarely use hashtags on their post, but I did find a couple posts where they utilized them. The hashtags were usually the same as the name of the beer that was featured in the post. For example, one of their posts was a picture of their Pale Ale and the hashtag was simply #PaleAle. They currently have 401K followers. They post at least once a day on their page and also actively post on their story. Just about all of their content receives a lot of responses but the most responses come from posts about releases of their limited beer releases. They also post a lot of content that has been sent in by fans or followers that receive a good amount of responses. The last post they posted was today, 3/16 and it was a video of them attempting a Guinness World Record Offical Attempt for the farthest distance thrown by a trebuchet. The content was captioned, "We went big with the launch of our new Big Little Thing Imperial IPA. How big? 438 feet." This post has received 18 comments so far.

Lagunitas Brewing Company: Instagram looks to be working effectively for Lagunitas. They don't use hashtags most of the time but when they do, it is the same one, #beerspeakspeoplemumble. It is one of their several known slogans. They currently have 293K followers. It looks like they aren't as active as the previous breweries and only post every other day. They get the most responses on content that contains food items paired with one of their beers. They also receive a lot of responses on content that fans or followers have sent in which features their dogs sitting alongside a Lagunitas beer. The last post was yesterday, 3/15, and was an advertisement for the launch of one of their new beers. The content was captioned, "The Ides of March are upon us, which means something Colossal is about to happen,,," This post has received 28 comments from followers expressing how excited they are for the release.

I have come to the conclusion that the following hashtags will best work for my business, #brewery, #craftbeer, #ipa, #sdbeer, #drinklocal. Overall from this research, I learned that if you are a well-established business hashtags aren't really necessary because you already have so many followers. Although if you are a small business or you are just starting off, hashtags are going to be something that you rely on. They are going to bring more viewers to your page and ultimately make a name for yourself. Therefore when creating hashtags you really need to think about which ones are going to benefit your business the most.

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