What Is A Hashtag And How Do You Use Them?
Hashtags are a nifty little tool that can really benefit your business engagement. If you aren’t using hashtags in 2021 you are missing out on great opportunities to expose your company to a wider audience.
The hashtag was first used by Chris Messina on Twitter in 2007. Previously, a hashtag was typically known for marking numbers however, now hashtags are used for linking social media content to a specific topic. This is a great way to discover content and can be used over a variety of social media platforms. Linking each platform via a single word or phrase can be very powerful gaining exposure for your company.
What makes a good hashtag?
Using hashtags can be great for exploring content. But they can be very beneficial when used correctly.
Make sure you are keeping them short and sweet
When typing your hashtags you don’t have the opportunity to add spaces within your hashtags. Therefore, it can be easy to misconstrue what was intended by the hashtag. We don’t want to relive the #SusanAlbumParty debacle of 2012. Also, it can be easy to add spelling mistakes which completely destroys any intention of the hashtag. You may as well have not included any in the first place as they will serve no purpose if spelt incorrectly. This can be avoided by keeping your hashtags short as mistakes can be spotted more easily.
Keep your hashtags relevant to what you are talking about.
This means that you can target your audience directly. If your hashtags aren’t linked to what you are talking about then the hashtag serves you no purpose. By doing this you are potentially congesting the hashtag which then makes it unusable.
Don’t overuse your hashtags
There are many reasons why including too many hashtags in your posts can be bad. First of all, it can make you look unprofessional. Including too many hashtags can make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing which is not a good look (even if you don’t know what you’re doing). The algorithm can think your post is spam which can completely ruin your chances of additional engagement. Along with, it can just make your post look sloppy and unappealing.
Search hashtags before you use them
You can consider this as a form of market research. This can assure that you know which hashtags to use and how they may be effective to your business. This can help you to explore all the new hashtags that are trending. Use them to your advantage as this can be a great way to promote your business to a wider audience and help you to look modern and on trend.
You don’t want to try using a new trendy hashtag and find out that it is inappropriate which can make your business look a mature. Also, you don’t want to misuse a hashtag. Using a trendy hashtag incorrectly can be embarrassing #awkward.
Final thoughts
Overall, hashtags are a great way to enhance your social media presence as they make your content viewable by anyone who has an interest in your hashtag as it goes beyond just your followers. 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 exponentially increases the likelihood of fresh leads for your business.
