My local coffee shop's Instagram reel got 10k views from a single hashtag

I run the social media for a small cafe in Portland, and we posted a simple reel of our barista making a latte. I used the hashtag #PortlandCoffee on a whim, and it blew up overnight. I didn't think a local tag would have that much reach compared to the big generic ones. Has anyone else seen a specific location-based hashtag work better for them than expected?

3 comments

3 Comments

piper1752mo ago

Tried the same thing with my kid's lemonade stand last summer. Used our town name as a hashtag and got three whole likes, two of which were from my mom's different accounts. Guess the algorithm prefers professional latte art over a shaky video of a six-year-old with a pitcher of Country Time.

hugo502mo ago

Saw a whole article about this, @piper175. The algorithm really does seem to hate anything that looks homemade. It's all about that slick, professional content now.

parker_bell25d ago

Remember when I tried posting that timelapse of me building a birdhouse from scrap wood? I thought it was pretty cool, all rough edges and crooked nails, real authentic stuff. The algorithm buried it so deep I think my cat got more likes when she walked across my keyboard and posted a blank photo. Meanwhile some dude with a perfectly lit video of him sanding a piece of lumber with a zero grain shirt on got like 12k views. It's like they want everything to look like it came out of a catalog, not like an actual person made it with their own two hands. Made me wonder if the platform even knows what creativity looks like anymore.