The power of Hashtags
Einstein’s Friday Formulas
What exactly are hashtags – #?
The use of the hashtag is now crucial in everyday social media as it has become a search tool. The symbol known as the hashtag is # and is put at the beginning of a word to allow users to search for posts or tweets of a certain topic. Although this has spread to Facebook, it originally started within Twitter as it was used at the end of tweets to highlight the main points, e.g. #Selfie. This search tool is a useful addition to many social media interactions.
However, it is worth noting that you shouldn’t just hashtag anything in your tweets/posts. You should choose the key aspects of what you are discussing or posting about. The more relevant they are, the more they are going to be searched and the more interaction they will provoke. For example, the #2014WorldCup was in trend more so than the #WinterOlympics this summer.
How many should you use?
It is also important the number of hashtags you use. Some recommend to make use of lots, whereas others suggest to only use 1 or 2. As a social media team, we have learnt there are times for both. When it comes to hashtags about business it is better to use as many as you can, covering lots of different aspects of business e.g. #Marketing #Advertising #Entrepreneur #Networking so that when someone searches for any of these your post comes up and whatever point or advertisement you were posting is noticed. Our experience has shown us that 5 or 6 hashtags have been optimal for achieving desired results with social media content (C).
Make the most of Trends (T)
However, when talking about a social trend it is useful to highlight the trend in your hashtags as there will be a specific hashtag which lots of people are looking for and using themselves. When a subject or issue is given a great deal of attention and publicity, the hashtag is universally accepted as representing and relating to that topic. This means the content and opinions of what people are posting can all be found by conducting a search using this word or phrase. We thoroughly recommend that if there is a specific hashtag trending hugely then it is advisable to use that one.
Either way, hashtags are the face of today’s social media and it can really help boost the reach (R) and engagement (E) of your posts and also the interaction from others, which will lead to more followers and likes.
What are your experiences with hashtags? Have they helped your posts reach a greater audience? Comment below or let us know on our Facebook page here or on our Twitter page here