Trouble with Hashtags? Here’s a guide to help you!
Are you struggling with hashtags on social media??
Look no further! Whether you're on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, we've got you covered with our comprehensive guide to effective hashtag usage.?
The WHO:
If you're a small business owner, entrepreneur, marketer, or social media manager who is trying to increase your brand's reach and visibility on social media, hashtags can be a game-changer.?
The WHY:
Hashtags are used to categorize content and make it easily discoverable by relevant audiences. When used correctly, they can help you to expand your network, increase engagement, and get your content in front of a broader audience.
THE HOW:?
For example, if you're a small business owner that produces eco-friendly beauty products and wants to increase brand awareness, using relevant and specific hashtags such as #ecobeauty #organicbeauty #sustainablebeauty can help you to reach eco-conscious individuals who are interested in clean and green skincare.
Or if you're a marketer looking to promote your company's new podcast, incorporating relevant hashtags such as #marketingpodcast #digitalmarketingtips #contentmarketing can increase the chances of your content being discovered by people who are interested in your specific area of expertise.?
Decoding the Hashtag Puzzle
Do you remember the feeling of putting together a puzzle as a child, wondering if all the pieces will fit together perfectly? That's how I feel about hashtag usage on social media.
I absolutely love hashtags for their ability to increase social media posts' reach, boost discoverability, and build a strong brand presence.?
However, just like how you can't force a puzzle piece into a spot where it doesn't belong, brands shouldn't use hashtags without consideration or light up their posts with them in hopes of quickly fixing a broken social profile.?
Instead, hashtags should be carefully selected, thoughtfully integrated, and prove relevant to the content being posted so that they fit perfectly into the overall social media strategy and contribute meaningfully to the post's success.?
Overall, hashtags are an essential tool for social media growth and are essential to navigate for anyone looking to increase the visibility and discoverability of their content.
Hashtag Strategy
When it comes to hashtag usage, HOPING that your audience loves and interacts with you isn't an effective strategy. It isn’t really a strategy at all! In fact, achieving hashtag success is dependent upon your ENTIRE hashtag strategy.
Yes, using hashtags is an art in itself - and requires its own strategy.
To increase your chances of gaining organic traction with your preferred audience, it's essential to develop a comprehensive hashtag strategy that's tailored to the different social media platforms you're using. By doing this, you can take your social media presence from average to extraordinary, boost engagement twofold (at the last), and attract a steady stream of new followers.
So, let's break it down by platform to help you become a hashtag master in 2023!?
Hashtags on Twitter can be a powerful tool for boosting your brand’s visibility, encouraging engagement, and expanding your network with like-minded individuals.
According to Twitter Business, tweets with relevant top hashtags can generate a significant lift across the marketing funnel, such as:?
Quantity matters
One or two relevant hashtags in your tweets are the sweet spot. Could you add more? Sure. Should you? Probably not.
Consider relevancy
Look for frequently used hashtags and engage with those posts to increase visibility. Don’t shy away from hashtags specific to Twitter chats. These forums are great opportunities to meet potential clients, make connections, and grow your knowledge base.
Go niche
Think beyond the broad hashtags and get granular. Often, you’ll find rare and segmented niche marketing divisions that can help you position yourself as a thought leader on the platform, through efficient use of your hashtags!
Test everything
Don’t base your hashtag success on like counts. Use Twitter Analytics to track tweet performance and look for correlations and patterns to see which hashtags get the most engagement so you can replicate that process.
LinkedIn is all about connection, whether you’re building a personal brand or marketing a brand. And much like Twitter, if you want your content to stand out among LinkedIn’s 500-plus million members, an appropriate hashtag strategy is key.
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When used correctly, adding relevant hashtags to your posts and articles will help you connect with new audiences, establish credibility, expand your reach, build a community around your organization, and promote your brand and its products.
Count the quantity
LinkedIn suggests including no more than three hashtags per post and using broad and niche hashtags for increased exposure (e.g., #Marketing [broad], #ContentMarketing [niche]).
Three hashtags are sufficient if you target them appropriately for the target audience.
Consider hashtag placement
When possible, insert your hashtags organically into the post caption so they become a natural part of your story. Clumping them at the bottom not only looks clunky but distracts from the purpose of the post.
Optimize your pages
Choose up to 20 specialties to add to your company page that represents what you do and what you post about. Think of these as “hashtaggable” keywords to help your page be found more easily on the platform.
Use hashtags in comments
You can add hashtags when you comment on a post or article. This good community management tactic can help increase your personal and brand searchability.
Test everything.
Keep a record of the hashtags you use and look for correlations with your overarching goal (i.e., engagement, post clicks, reach, etc.).
Because many users’ profiles are set to private and an abundance of topical groups exists, getting audience members to engage and interact with hashtags on Facebook can be more challenging.
I don’t recommend spending time on Facebook hashtags, but before you opt out, monitor relevant and branded hashtags to make sure your audience isn’t the exception to the rule.
You can do this search by adding the keyword or hashtag at the end of the URL facebook.com/hashtag/_____.
If no one has used the hashtag in years, don’t invest time in creating a Facebook hashtag strategy. However, if you find the hashtag does engage an audience, use no more than two to three hashtags per post to see if they perform for your brand.
Do hashtags help you improve your brand’s reach on Instagram in 2023? This is the current question circling the social sphere. As we have seen from Instagram’s switch from ‘Recent posts’ (that included all posts by creators big and small) to ‘Recent Top Posts’ (that only include top creators' posts) - hashtags aren’t as effective on Instagram as they once were.
So, what now?
Social media search engine optimization enters the hashtag conversation.
In an experiment by Hootsuite to see if posts with hashtags performed worse than those that prioritized relevant keywords, it was deduced that keyword-focused captions saw 30% more reach and increased engagement over those with hashtags.
So, while this shows a shift away from Hashtag usage - it's not to say that hashtags don’t still have their place. They’re just not the priority on Instagram that they once were.
So armed with this data, here are my Instagram recommendations:
Minimize hashtag usage
A few months ago, I would have recommended a max of 12 hashtags. My current recommendation is no more than four targeted hashtags on any post.
Use relevant and descriptive keywords
Think of caption writing as just another form of content writing. Incorporate relevant and descriptive keywords. Keep it short and sweet when possible. People scroll so quickly that crafting clear, concise captions makes sense to get the maximum impact.
Tag topics
As the Topics icon indicates, topics are the next iteration of Instagram’s hashtags. They help you reach people who share an interest. You can add up to three topics to your post right before you publish it if you have the feature in the share menu.
Check out the competition
You probably have competitor accounts you emulate for their content. Do a deep dive into what’s working for them on the platform and use what you learn to inform your strategy.
Maybe they use some targeted keywords you hadn’t considered to reach your audience or maybe you walk away with a renewed sense of creative vision. Either way, it’s a win.
Keep it fun
Social media is supposed to be fun. It’s where you get the chance to show a brand’s personality and give audience members a look behind the curtain. Don’t take a hashtag strategy to such an extreme that you stop interjecting humor and personality into your post captions.
So when it comes to creating a hashtag strategy for social media remember to keep it specific, concise, and fun. Happy hashtagging!!