Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past 12 years, the amazing rise of the hashtag has been somewhat of an explosion on the social media scene! Hashtags are everywhere..Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, at events, and even on commercials and movie trailers, and it just used to be the humble pound sign. It’s no surprise that one of the questions we often hear about in social media marketing, centers on why hashtags even matter and what purpose do they serve.
Hashtags do work and can make a difference
Hashtags do play an important role in your social media postings, across a number of platforms. They help develop an interest in categorized content for that targeted audience. From a user perspective, hashtags allow people to find posts that are relevant to their interests and interact with other social media users who share those interests by joining the conversation about hashtag XYZ. From a business perspective, using hashtags gets your business noticed which attracts new customers and grows your online presence. It can also be a way to establish your company as a voice for certain topics, and to maybe create a light-hearted view on the post.
Hashtags do work and can make a difference, but knowing where, why and how to use hashtags can change your social media game for the better!
Why Should You Use #Hashtags?
Hashtags can help you build a brand for your business by engaging with your customers and joining the conversation about what’s trending. If you participate in high-traffic conversation by discovering the biggest trending topics, you are more likely to gain great visibility to your business. The more visibility you get, the more likely you are able to create a larger audience, and a larger audience increases the likelihood of fresh leads for your business.
#Hashtags On Twitter
Twitter is an undeniably powerful platform to increase your business’s online reach. The average Twitter user follows 5 businesses and 80% of all twitter users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet. If you hashtag general words like#Design or an event like #coachella it is more than likely to increase your tweet post beyond your followers. Twitter is not just a place to grow customers through word-of-mouth marketing — it’s also a place to meet your customers where they are.
But a word of warning! As well as using too long and wordy hashtags like #thebestlittlebakeryshopintheworld (please don’t!) The use of #too #many #hashtags can also be very annoying, and can actually harm your social media presence as it will come off to your followers as desperate and it will dilute the message you are trying to convey.
#Hashtags On Instagram
Lets face it, hashtags were made for instagram. Where would we be without using a sly hashtag here and there. But there is a slight difference from Twitter, using more specific hashtags on Instagram, within reason, can help build a bigger audience for your business. The rule of long hash tagging though does still apply (seriously, please don’t! )
One tip you can consider when posting on Instagram: look at the hashtags your audience is already using and connect your hashtags with those.
so it actually has a negative effect and also tends to irritate your friends!
#Hashtags On Facebook
Even though hashtags are useful and drive engagement to your business social media accounts, hashtags don’t always work on every single social media platform, Facebook is one of them. Facebook did actually introduce the use of hashtags back in 2013, but because facebook users don’t actually use hashtags in their searches, it hasn’t proved popular, and does not pose any substantial benefit. In fact, posts without a hashtag perform better than posts that contain a hashtag, so it actually has a negative effect and also tends to irritate your friends!
#Hashtags On LinkedIn
Since hashtags were only introduced in 2018, the use of hashtags in your LinkedIn posts aren’t as searchable and effective as on the other platforms, but they can still help your business. Make them relevant to your content, company, and industry, but, since LinkedIn is a professional platform, it’s important to keep hashtags work appropriate.
Hashtags make it easy for people to find your social media content, increase social media engagement, and help to attract new customers.
If hashtags are not something you have included in your social media posts for your personal or business accounts, it is never too late to join the fad. Hashtags are a continuously growing communications tool that can help you grow your social media presence and create more engagement in order to better your business.