Use no more than five hashtags on a café post, because that's Instagram's limit: two or three for the drink or the bean (#FlatWhite, #SingleOrigin), one for your town (#SeattleCoffee), and your café's name. A guest-coffee post and a pastry-case post should not share one copied block.
The hashtags worth using for a coffee shop
What you pour
Tag the drink in the photo or the coffee on the bar this week. #SingleOrigin and #PourOver tell coffee people what's special; #IcedLatte tells everyone else.
Where you are
Your next regular lives within walking distance, and a tag joining your town or neighbourhood to coffee is where they would find you.
The pattern: #[Town]Coffee or #[Neighbourhood]Cafe
- Seattle: #SeattleCoffee #SeattleCafe
- Brighton: #BrightonCoffee #BrightonCafe
- Wellington: #WellingtonCoffee #WellingtonCafe
Your own tag
Print it on the cup sleeve or the loyalty card. People photograph their drinks anyway; the tag gives the photo somewhere to go.
For example: #PebbleAndPourCoffee
Five tags for one real post
The post: “Guest coffee this month is a washed Ethiopian: peach and black tea in the cup. On filter and espresso until the bag runs out.”
What the post shows, where the business is, and its own name. Five tags, each one earning its place.
Tags to skip
- #coffee, #coffeetime, #coffeelover. Every café and kitchen table in the world posts there, so your flat white is gone before anyone on your street sees it.
- #SingleOrigin on a blend. Specialty regulars know the difference and will ask. If it's your house blend, say so; #SpecialtyCoffee still fits.
- #DigitalNomad, #LaptopFriendly unless you mean it. They bring people looking for a desk for the day. If your tables need to turn over at lunch, you've invited the guest you'll have to ask to move.
Seasonal tags
- Summer: #IcedCoffee #ColdBrew
- September 29 (US): #NationalCoffeeDay
- October 1: #InternationalCoffeeDay
- Autumn: #PumpkinSpice #FallMenu
- December: #GingerbreadLatte #PeppermintMocha
Only on posts that are about that season. A Christmas tag on a plain Tuesday loaf is noise.
More for your coffee shop
- Post ideas for a coffee shop, each with a finished example post.
- How posthell runs social media for a coffee shop, from one note a week.
- Hashtag counter to check a caption before you post it.