Using hashtags in the social media along with your business page posts can dramatically increase public awareness and eventual engagement, drawing traffic to your page. Social media icon Twitter has reported that, those brands that have used hashtags tactfully, have seen a 50% increase in engagement than those who didn’t use the same. In this article, let us discuss in details the most effective ways of using hashtags for your business marketing, their Do’s and Don’ts, as well as, a few interesting tips and tricks of implementing them.
The category and the number of hashtags you use are primarily determined by the social media platform in which you are posting. Each of these SM platforms has their own hashtag limits beyond which they do not accept.
Many of us know that, Facebook allows us to use a considerable number of hashtags, whereas, in Twitter, which restricts each post to 280 characters, your options are little. You must also remember that, a platform allowing scores and dozens of hashtags does not mean that you will post as many hashtags only to annoy the visitors to your posts.
Always insist on researching and creating hashtags that are more specific, that is, directly or closely related to your business or product. This will focus a clearer spotlight onto your by drawing the attention of the targeted audience.
If you are the owner of a kids wear store, you are expected to use hashtags like #kidswear and #childrenswear (or, maybe #kids_wear and #childrens_wear), which is more specific, rather than hashtags like #fashion or #style, which are not only generic, but also encompass two broad topics (that can include anything from men’s wear to women’s fashion to sunglasses and shoes or accessories. Hence, such generic hashtags will not drive in people who are specifically looking for kids’ wear.
If you are expecting that others will use your hashtags, you need to keep them simple and easy to keep in mind. Since, if you coin hashtags that are quite complicated, or too obscure, people with the same interest will fail to remember them by heart, and eventually, will not use them.
For the very simple reason, keeping your hashtag short is also necessary, since, in that case, your visitors will have a hard time remembering it. To avoid such situations, you might as well want to use acronyms for your targeted hashtag.
As evidence to the above, many of you must have noticed that some hashtags started off quite long, but later, were cut short with their rising popularity, e.g., hashtags like #mancrushmonday, or #throwbackthursday were cut short to #mcm and #tbt, respectively.
While using hashtags has been a trend of late, more and more people use them as a means to include their posts in related (or at least associated) searches. However, such chunks of hashtags are not merely redundant, but also prove to be quite annoying in the eyes of the readers.
The fact is, not all posts need multiple hashtags, or in fact, any hashtag at all! Your hashtag should prove to be useful to the readers/followers, and at the same time, help your business to be discoverable to your targeted audience.
For this very simple reason, if you find yourself struggling to use hashtags in your post, it is advisable that you forego using it. So, you do not want to force #tags on to your social media posts, since your online campaign will perform much better when your focus is on quality, rather than quantity of the hashtags used.
You will often come across some hashtags that have become ‘viral’ or trending on social media. If you are posting on behalf of your new business, you might as well want to utilise such trending hashtags that will help you draw the attention of your targeted lot.
Taking advantage of such an opportunity can prove to be lucrative for your business. In this case, you should also keep in mind that, even if a hashtag is not directly associated to what you sell or offer, you can always use it indirectly on your wall to promote your business. Here is an example to explain this. Let say, you offer web design or software services, but you came across a few hashtags – say ‘#MotivationMonday’ and ‘#WisdomWednesday’, and began posting them on Mondays and Wednesdays, accordingly, using motivational designs and inspirational quotes, along with the name of your branding an industry-specific way. This will work, since, by doing so, you ensure that, you are still driving traffic towards your social media page.
Use of hashtags has shown direct positive impact on your number of retweets too. It has also been seen that, tweets that appear with hashtags have 55% more probability of being retweeted and/or shared by other people on the network.
As a matter of fact, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the right and appropriate use of hashtags has proved to be a very effective way of taking your business’ social media marketing initiative to the next level.
Did you know that, the very first hashtag that was used was #barcamp, posted in 2007 on Twitter by Chris Messina, an internet consultant and product designer?