Content Marketing

#hashtags: A Sign of the Times

Jane R Shelton

You’ll find that without hashtags, you’ll have less success getting your message across or capturing the attention of your target audience. Twitter started it, now hashtags are a given on any social media platform. But there are a few tips to follow if you want hashtags to work well for you.

Know Your Social Media

Social media platforms are not all the same. For instance, studies tell us that if you use hashtags in your tweets, you’ll get twice the engagement; but if you use more than one, engagement drops.  Hashtags on Instagram posts are a different matter. The more tags the better. Using hashtags in posts on Facebook has changed engagement little if any. LinkedIn hashtags are still in the early stages, but show a lot of promise for broader business categories.

How Many are Too Many?

Too many hashtags can disrupt readability, so be resourceful and use them to get the attention of new followers. Don’t weigh your post down with hashtags when 1 or 2 relevant ones will do unless you are in Instagram where 10+ are the norm. Instagram specifically has options to bury the tags within the content so that it doesn’t affect readability.

Types of Hashtags?

Here are the 3 types of marketing strategies for hashtags:

  • brand and campaign
  • trending
  • content hashtags

A brand hashtag should be unique to your business or organization. It’s a useful marketing tool to get people to use them and help promote your business or brand.

Popular topics that people are talking about usually have a hashtag. Trending hashtags have the potential for being seen by a larger audience.

Content hashtags are the ones you use in your posts and include: product, services, lifestyle, and location.

Is Your Hashtag Relevant, Creative, and Even Inspiring?

Hashtags will engage more people if you make them easy. Relevant, creative topics that encourage and even inspire people to take part will work best.  If you’re presenting a competition that offers a reward, your hashtag will capture a bigger audience. If your hashtag inspires on its own and is outside your brand, you can gain good traction.

Make your hashtag simple and easy to remember, but authentic. If your tag communicates what the post is about, it will be better received. Shorter hashtags usually capture attention more than long ones and go viral more often, too.