Week 8B Your Instagram Hashtag Use

 For this blog I had the opportunity to make a post to an Instagram account @carlyscause that I am managing but have not had the chance to put much time into.  The account on Instagram is new, however the carlys cause on Facebook is established and we are working on our content and engagement by posting live meetings twice per month.  I posted on our Instagram account regarding the meetings and inviting parents of children with disabilities to join.  I used several hashtags: #parentsupportgroup #specialneedsparentsing #specialneedschildren #disabilityawareness #disabilityrights #raredisease. These were hashtags to reach a general group of people who would most likely benefit from our organization.  Next I posted two hashtags that are very specific to the conditions of the founder and I's children. #ddx3x #angelmansyndrome.  ddx3x is extremely rare with only 1000 posts to that hashtag.  Angelman syndrome although rare, has 70,000 posts to that hashtag.  I hope this will reach the right people who will benefit from our parent support group. I posted at 1pm on a Friday. 

I learned an important lesson for my journey moving forward as I will be involved in social media for nonprofit organizations that benefit the disabled community.  The hashtags are so important to be visible.  The engagement is important too.  Not just replying back to comments but also liking and commenting other pages of similar interests.  I believe this will take our efforts to the next level.  Hashtags were something I struggled with on my own personal page in the past.  I really didn't want to use them and if I did I only wanted to use a few.  Maybe I didn't realize how valuable they were because I didn't have a purpose or strategy in my posts.  When there is a goal, the hashtags just came to my mind because I knew exactly who I wanted to reach with my post.