Go And See For Yourself – Don't Believe Everything You Read
Kay posted on Facebook:
I just read this in a recently posted article by Foundr magazine:
Just FYI, the original poster cannot leave tags in comments anymore…you might get one or two tags in before you get a red error message when commenting. Have to go back to putting them in the description. Bummer.
What the hell?, I screamed to myself, I just created 7 hashtags in my own Instagram photo’s comment section – and specifically not in the photo’s description section. Foundr Magazine can NOT be correct.
Genchi Genbutsu
In Eric Ries’s Lean Startup there’s a Japanese phrase: Genchi Genbutsu. It means “go and see.” The concept of Genchi Genbutsu is attributed to Taiichi Ohno, considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing in the U.S.
Go and see for yourself
1. I took a pic with Instagram, added a non-hashtag description, then added 7 hashtags in my own comment section. Then I took a screenshot and shared it with Kay to show that it could be done.
She had an interesting response: “I don’t know what to tell you. The notice I posted was word for word copied and pasted from an article and comments published in a Foundr article… do what you have always done until [Instagram] tells you no more.”
In other words, she didn’t go and see for herself. And since I had not read the Foundr Magazine article myself, I needed to make my own assessment.
2. I searched Google for “foundr mag instagram tags” and found the original blog post: Instagram Marketing 101 – How We Acquired 10,000 Followers And Exploded Our Business. And, sure enough, there was the text that Kay had shared on Facebook.
Now I could see the whole context:
Anthony Octavio Ramos:
Just FYI, the original poster cannot leave tags in comments anymore…you might get one or two tags in before you get a red error message when commenting. Have to go back to putting them in the description. Source
The truth: the snippet that Kay posted was only a comment on the Foundr article, posted by Anthony Octavio Ramos about HIS personal experience with Instagram. It had nothing to do with Foundr’s recommendations for using Instagram’s hashtags!
Even the Foundr blog author, Nathan Chan, wasn’t sure what Anthony’s comment was referring to, stating:
Nathan Chan:
Hey Anthony, I’m not quite sure what you mean by this my man? Source
What does it all mean
There was nothing wrong. Instagram does not have a 2-hashtag limit – because I typed in 7. Instagram does have limits, as documented on Instragram.com itself. Don’t take anyone’s word for the truth, go and see for yourself. Go to the source. Even what I’ve written here today…
