Instagram is a great way to discover new poems, interact with fellow poets, and even market your own work. Instagram’s hashtags are a big part of that formula. Hashtags help us find new content, and make our own content easier to discover. In fact, they’re an essential tool for cracking Instagram’s algorithm. To help you get into the hashtag game, we’ve compiled a list of 12 solid Instagram poetry hashtags to follow. Whether you’re looking to browse new work, become part of a community, or gain a little more exposure, these 12 hashtags are a great place to start.
#poetrycommunity and #poetsofinstagram
With 11 million posts each and growing, #poetrycommunity and #poetsofinstagram are two of the most popular hashtags to help you find and share work and connect with other poets. A hashtag with this much activity is great to follow because you’ll find a sea of new work to explore each day. If you’re hoping to get more engagement by using a hashtag on your own post, these two reach wider than deep. Although plenty of ‘grammers use and follow this hashtag, keep in mind that your post won’t be at the top of the page for long—hashtags this popular can get a bit crowded.
#spilledink and #poetryisnotdead
#Spilledink and #poetryisnotdead are great hashtags to help you find and connect with passionate poets. Each has just over 4 million posts, averaging 3-5,000 posts per day. Following either of these hashtags (or both!) will ensure you a steady, but not overflowing stream of poetry content. Though these two hashtags are not quite as popular as the previously mentioned, they’re still moderately competitive if you’re looking to rank high on the explore page.
#poetsandwriters and #poetscorner
#poetsandwriters is a great hashtag to follow if you’re interested in seeing more than poetry. Though most of the posts using this hashtag are poems, you’ll find some prose, flash fiction, and writing prompts here as well. If you’re looking for a hashtag with similar traffic that focuses on poetry alone, #poetscorner is a great alternative. Both have well over 200k posts, which means they’re great to follow without being overwhelmed; they’re also not as competitive if you’re hoping to land a top spot on the explore page. That being said, the audiences for these two are much smaller than the previously mentioned hashtags.
#poetscafe and #voicesofpoets
With just over 30k posts apiece, these two hashtags are low on the traffic totem pole. At the same time, that means they’re not as crowded (or competitive) as the aforementioned hashtags. While you’ll have a better chance at ranking high on the explore page for these two, using them alone might not make the biggest dent in your engagement. Remember to use a combination of high and low-traffic hashtags to help you extend your reach.
#poetryprompts and #readpoetryprompts
If you’re looking for inspiration, following #poetryprompts is a great place to start. You’ll find plenty of ideas here—with a wide range of themes and users who post them. Definitely use this hashtag if you’d like to share your own poetry prompt. If you complete a prompt from this page, it’s never a bad idea to tag the original poster and let them know you liked the prompt. Speaking of, #readpoetryprompts is Read Poetry’s home to poetry prompt responses. Follow the hashtag to discover new work, and be sure to use it and tag @readpoetry_ if you complete a prompt from our page.
