Social media use is one of the best ways to attract visitors to your website. When it comes to properly using many major social media sites, especially Twitter, hashtags are critical to success. However, proper hashtag use is something that many brands are simply uninformed about, leading to poor social media use that turns potential customers off. With this guide, your brand can learn more about why you should use hashtags, how to use them on different platforms, and best practices for hashtag creation and deployment.
Why Hashtags?
The first question on your mind is probably, “Why should I use hashtags?” Here are some answers:
- Easier Searching: The main benefit of hashtags is that they make searching online easier. Hashtags arrange content by category, which allows users to easily find content that your brand is posting and is relevant to their interests.
- Joining the Conversation: Hashtags are also useful because they create a conversation online. If you use hashtags in your marketing campaign, you are enabling users to easily view and join in on the conversation, therefore increasing engagement.
- Online Reputation: Another benefit is improvement to your online brand and reputation. Hashtags make your brand more visible and show that you know how to make good use of social media.
- Viral Marketing: Hashtags have also been used in viral marketing campaigns, which will vastly increase your followers and customer base. Even if your post does not go viral, you can still use hashtags to introduce new products, announce an event, etc.
- Better Engagement: Finally, hashtags have been proven to lead to better customer engagement on social media. With hashtags, you are much more likely to have customers see your posts and respond.
Using Different Platforms
While Twitter is known for its widespread use of hashtags, hashtags are available on many different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and LinkedIn. However, hashtags have not been as quick to catch on in other networks; for example, a recent study by Simply Measured found that hashtag use on Facebook does not increase engagement. Despite these numbers, using hashtags on other platforms can’t hurt your brand, and it can help you when it comes to cross posting between social media networks.
Hashtag 101: Creation
Now that you know why and where you should use hashtags, it is time to begin creating them. First, you should understand the technical requirements of a hashtag. Hashtags do not have spaces, and they always start with the # symbol. When you create your hashtag, brevity is key, especially considering the character limit on Twitter.
If you are planning to use a hashtag for a specific marketing campaign, you should first check to see that the hashtag is not already in use for another purpose. However, you can also use hashtags that already exist, either to join in on a discussion or to simply categorize your content. Finally, remember that there are standards for proper hashtag etiquette. Only use hashtags that are relevant to your content, and never use more than two hashtags in one post.
Hashtag 102: Deployment
After learning about how to create a proper hashtag, it is time to decide exactly how you will use your hashtags. There are many different ways to use hashtags to build your brand:
- New Products: One great way to use hashtags is to introduce a new product. Many brands create a buzz around new products with a hashtag campaign that leads up to its reveal.
- Promotions: Hashtags are also useful in alerting customers of different promotions and sales your company is having.
- Events: Along with new products and promotions, you can also use hashtags to announce an event.
- Contests: Many brands use hashtags to hold online contests. Instruct followers to tweet or post their entry using a dedicated hashtag.
- Chatting: To increase customer engagement, use hashtags to start a chat or network. Using a dedicated hashtag, you can invite your followers to give feedback or join in on a conversation.
- Live-Tweeting: Is your company attending an event or conference? Live-tweeting is an accepted practice to share key parts of an event with users who cannot attend.
