A Phenomenal Guide on How To Use Hashtag

Hashtags are one word or a collection of multiple words that are tagged with a hash symbol before the words to help funnel content and make it more searchable for search engine platforms and users alike. The best hashtags can greatly enhance the digital marketing strategy and social media strategy for brands.

You can easily understand how to use hashtags when you understand their purpose. There are no spaces between hash signs and the following word or phrases. A space in between the hash sign removes the tag from the word and renders it useless. It is easy to identify if a hashtag is working by simply clicking on the tagged word. A word with a hashtag on social media platforms tends to appear in blue or hyperlinked. There has been a lot of addition of words to the dictionary over the last two decades. Thanks to social media and its popularity among the global population, these words are now trending hashtags for people of all ages and cultures.

Hashtags play a fundamental role to promote brands, products, services, and content on different social platforms. While hashtags were primarily used on Twitter to post relevant Tweets, they are now widely accepted and help to funnel content on different social platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Ground Rules on How to Make a Hashtag Work

From marketers and business owners, everyone has a different purpose for hashtag use. However, it is essential to know how to make a hashtag work before you can employ them on your social media. Here are some of the common rules to make a hashtag word do its work:

• Lower or Upper cases are irrelevant until you want to use the hashtag for a brand name or for other purposes. For example #holidays #Holidays #HOLIDAYS are equally effective to help users search for what they are looking for easily. 

• A hashtag's efficiency reduces when the words or phrases get longer. 3–4 words in a hashtag should be the maximum limit if you want them to work appropriately. Longer words make it difficult for users to read and understand as well. 

• There is always a scope to create your own hashtag but applying an existing or trending hashtag will have similar benefits to fit your purpose.

How Do Hashtags Work

Since hashtags are used on social platforms to organize posts based on content, it helps users to discover the content of their choice when they click on similar hashtags. A glimpse into the hashtags that are used by Instagram and Twitter influencers can offer productive insight. Hashtags work differently on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Users can easily check out the top, latest, people, sport, news, photos, music and more with the hashtag collections. 

There are different online tools to help identify effective hashtags based on brand or content niche. These tools offer suggestions for high popularity and trending hashtags with relatable keywords to make search engine rankings easier.

Benefits of Hashtag Use

Here is a list of the compelling reasons why hashtags are useful and benefit brands:

• Highly Discoverable & Visible - Appropriate hashtags for relevant content help new followers to discover new brands. Nevertheless, it is essential to maintain a frequency to post content using hashtags to keep followers engaged. The right hashtags unfold the opportunity for brands and individuals to connect with their target market audience. Also, for example, #Australia or #Brisbane makes the content or the post more geographic. This is a great way for small businesses to promote and sell their products and services online. Hashtags are a great way to add to your network and connect with like-minded people and be a part of communities

• Easy Content Ideation - Content research, analysis and discoverability become easier for brands when they have an idea about the trends and niche of hashtag use for different purposes on different platforms. Market research highlights the important hashtags that are popular among the target audience and competitors. This gives an opportunity to create new hashtags or follow the trending hashtags to lead users to the source content.

• Competitive Edge - Market analysis on competitors is possible and easy with the use of hashtags. It is a great way to keep a track of different types of work, partnerships and new releases. A hashtag search also helps to determine how different brands from the same industry are doing in terms of search engine rankings against each other. This shows how many users are inclined towards a brand, product, service or content.

• Improved Audience Engagement - This is one of the most important purposes for using hashtags. It is one of the easiest ways to connect with like-minded people and filter the target audience. When the users discover a new brand or content from a hashtag, they want to engage further. This is a great lead conversion strategy. Custom hashtags are used by brands and influencers to promote campaigns, products and giveaways. These are highly encouraging for all types of audiences who know how to use a hashtag and a great opportunity for small businesses to make a big impact.

There are several best practices for using hashtags correctly. You have to decide the number of hashtags to use in a single post, not repeat them frequently, and add them to stories and wherever applicable. Hashtags are not to be taken lightly because these tagged words determine how a brand performs and give an idea about the success rate of its content marketing strategy. Consult with professionals to design and build a website with a high return on investments.