100 free credits — no credit card required.Start building
Logo
Start for free
Hashtag Trends

What are the best hashtags for Instagram growth?

As of 2026-07-16, the most-used hashtag in growth-focused Instagram Reels is #socialmediagrowth, appearing on 38.3% of the 81 reels SocialCrawl sampled across 3 growth-intent seed searches.

Last updated July 16, 2026

Get your API keyView Documentation

The numbers, right now

Last updated July 16, 2026

#socialmediagrowth

Top hashtag

38.3%

Share of trending

81

Videos sampled

Live top 10

RankHashtag% of trending videosViews
1#socialmediagrowth38.3%1,077,885
2#instagrammarketing35.8%968,055
3#growyourinstagram29.6%532,248
4#socialmediamarketing21.0%833,518
5#instagramgrowth18.5%309,028
6#instagrowth14.8%950,328
7#instagramtips14.8%290,835
8#growoninstagram11.1%913,259
9#viral11.1%77,076
10#contentcreator11.1%55,345

How we compute this

We query /v1/instagram/search/hashtag with media_type=reels across 3 growth-intent seed hashtags, extract every hashtag from the captions of 81 reels, and rank them by how many reels use each tag, tie-broken by aggregate views. Recomputed on a regular cadence. Instagram does not expose a public trending feed, so this frequency ranking across growth-seeded Reels is the closest reliable signal available.

Source endpoints
/v1/instagram/search/hashtag
Sample size
81
Computed
2026-07-16

Run this yourself

One API call returns the same live feed we sampled. Drop in your key and go.

curl "https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/instagram/search/hashtag?region=US" \
  -H "x-api-key: sc_your_api_key_here"
FAQ

Have a question? We got answers

Find answers to frequently asked questions about SocialCrawl's API, pricing, and capabilities.

Contact us
What are the best hashtags for Instagram growth right now?
As of 2026-07-16, #socialmediagrowth leads among growth-focused Instagram Reels, appearing on 38.3% of the 81 reels we sampled. The full live top 10 is in the table on this page, recomputed on a regular cadence from 374 unique hashtags extracted across 3 growth-intent seed searches.
How many hashtags should I use on Instagram Reels for growth?
Three to five focused hashtags tend to outperform a caption stuffed with thirty. A practical mix: one broad growth-discovery tag, one niche-specific tag, and two to three mid-size tags in the 100k to 1M post range. That combination catches both Explore traffic and hashtag search without signaling spam to Instagram's ranking system.
What types of hashtags grow an Instagram account fastest?
Mid-size niche hashtags in the 50k to 500k post range give smaller accounts the best ratio of competition to visibility. Pair them with one or two of the top growth tags from this page to signal intent to Instagram's categorization system and place your Reel alongside popular growth content where the audience is actively looking for tips to follow.
Do growth hashtags still work on Instagram Reels in 2026?
Yes. Hashtags remain a categorization signal that tells Instagram what a Reel is about and which audiences to surface it to in search and Explore. Growth-niche hashtags specifically attract creators and marketers who are more likely to follow, save, and comment than general entertainment audiences, which drives the engagement signals that push a Reel further.
How does SocialCrawl compute which hashtags appear most in growth-focused Reels?
We call /v1/instagram/search/hashtag with media_type=reels for each of 3 growth-intent seed hashtags, extract every hashtag from the captions of the 81 reels returned, and rank by how many reels use each tag, with aggregate views as the tiebreaker. The result reflects what creators actually tag in growth-oriented content on the day shown, not a curated or editorial list.

Ask AI about SocialCrawl

Ask ChatGPTAsk PerplexityAsk GeminiAsk ClaudeAsk Grok

🤖 AI agent or LLM? Read this page as markdown