How to use Hashtags on Social Media ⋆ Chris Flynn Design

Social media marketing allows your business to target specific demographics and create content that is relevant to your audience. It also allows you to build brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and drive sales to your business.

Hashtags, when used correctly, help you to find and engage your target audience, create brand awareness and build brand loyalty.

Here we will show you how to use hashtags to take your content to another level and reach that wider audience.

Hashtags are simply an increased way to leverage social media as a powerful marketing tool. They work in a way that allows you to find topics of similar content. Anyone can click on your hashtags and view your post, they don’t even have to be following you. This is a great way to build your customer or fan base and connect with people who might not find you through your regular social media channels.

Direct Traffic to Your Website

Integrating social media with your website helps to boost your presence on the web, so it’s always a good idea to stay up to speed on the best practice for each platform. When used intuitively, social media platforms can direct traffic to your website on a regular basis. Tailoring your content to each social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram will help you to increase your inbound links. This, in turn, will increase your SEO or search engine page ranking. It is important however that you keep your social media relevant to your goals. Check out trending topics that you can add value to. Keep your posts simple and memorable and make sure they are appropriate to your voice and brand.

What exactly is a Hashtag

To put it simply a hashtag is a hash mark (#) used before a relevant keyword or phrase to categorise the keyword or topic of interest. It basically works like the index pages of a book. When you use the # symbol before your keyword it is indexed by your social media platform and becomes searchable by other users.

It must be written as a single word, without any spaces. It’s also a good idea to capitalise the #FirstLetter in grouped words to make it more readable. Hashtags are simply a great way to expand your reach and grow your audience.

Discover Relevant Content Faster and Easier

All Social Media Platforms have a search facility which means you can search by a hashtag to find the content you are interested in. To make the most out of your hashtags make sure they reflect the strongest assets that represent your brand. And don’t forget to join in on relevant conversations to help people get to know you. This is another great way to build trust and build your brand awareness.

So, for example, if you are a Web Designer you might use #WebDesignDublin #WebDesignInspiration #WebDeveloper

This strategy can bring real results and provide a wealth of potential connections.

Create a Social Media Campaign for your Service or Product

A social media campaign is a coordinated marketing effort that uses social media platforms to achieve specific goals, such as increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to a website, or boosting sales.

Your campaign could involve creating and sharing engaging content, running targeted advertisements, and interacting with your audience to generate buzz and increase engagement. Your social media campaign could also include influencer collaborations, contests, giveaways, and other promotional activities to achieve the desired results.

The success of your social media campaign can then measured by the metrics such as engagement, reach, impressions, conversions, and ROI. Social media campaigns can be designed for lots of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok You can include a variety of content types too such as images, videos, stories, and live streams. The use of hastags increases your reach to your target audience that don’t actually follow you, so its an incredible way to grow awareness of your product or brand.

Reinforce your Company Values and Expertise

To reinforce your company values and expertise on social media, share content that aligns with what your company stands for, like blog posts, articles, and industry news. Make sure to use relevant hashtags to increase the chances of your content being discovered by your target audience. This will position your company as a thought leader and reinforce your expertise.

Also, share stories that showcase how your company’s values and expertise come to life in action. This will make your values and expertise more tangible and easier for your audience to relate to. By sharing this type of content on social media, you can build trust with your audience and show them that your company is an expert in its field.

Make new Connections

Hashtags are a powerful tool to make new connections on social media. To use them effectively, research and use relevant hashtags related to your industry, participate in conversations, engage with others, create your own unique hashtags, and use location-based hashtags.

By using hashtags strategically, you can expand your reach and connect with people who share similar interests. This can help you build meaningful relationships and grow your presence on social media.

Build Brand Awareness

Start by developing a clear understanding of your brand. Create a strong visual identity, and use social media platforms to share content that aligns with your brand values and messaging. Engage with your audience and consider collaborating with influencers who align with your brand.

Participating in industry events and offering promotions or giveaways can also help to build brand awareness. By consistently using hashtags and implementing these strategies, you can increase your brand’s visibility and reach a much wider audience.

Create or Follow Trends

To create a trend on social media, you need to identify your target audience and create unique and creative content that will grab their attention. Use visually striking elements, such as images, videos, and graphics, and memorable hashtags to make your content more engaging and shareable.

Engage with your audience by responding to comments and sharing user-generated content. Continuously adapt to feedback and audience response to keep the momentum going and build a successful trend on social media.

Find potential Customers/Clients/Fans

Identify relevant hashtags related to your industry or niche. Use social media listening tools to track conversations and trending topics related to your business. Analyze your competitors’ social media profiles and look for hashtags they are using. This can help you identify new hashtags to use in your own content.

Look for people who are already interested in your products or services. Use location-based hashtags to target people in your local area. This can be especially effective for businesses with a physical storefront.

Interact with your Customers or Fan Base

Engage with people who are using the hashtags related to your business. Like and comment on their posts, and offer value to start building a relationship. By regularly using hashtags and engaging with your users who are interested in your business, you can build an active following of real customers or fans on social media, rather than just focusing on the vanity metrics of like and follows, that rarely drive results.

Get Valuable Feedback from Clients

By using hashtags to encourage feedback from clients, you can gain valuable insights into what your clients think about your business. Monitor your hashtags regularly to see what people are saying about your business. Take note of any patterns or trends in this feedback and use the feedback to improve your business and show your clients that you value their opinions.

You can also analyse your feedback to identify areas where you can improve your business. Use this information to make changes and adjustments to your products or services.

Find valuable UGC (user-generated content)

Monitor your hashtag regularly to see what kind of content is being shared by your audience. Take note of any patterns or trends in the UGC. Engage with your audience by liking, commenting, and sharing the UGC that is being shared using your hashtag. This will encourage more people to share content related to your brand. Repurpose the UGC that is being shared using your hashtag by sharing it on your own social media channels, website, or in your marketing materials. This will help to build brand awareness and increase engagement with your audience.

By using hashtags to encourage UGC from your audience, you can build a community of loyal followers who are passionate about your brand. By engaging with UGC and repurposing it, you can increase brand awareness and build trust with your audience.

Attract Influencers

Research relevant hashtags related to your industry or niche. Look for hashtags that are popular among influencers in your industry. Analyse the influencers who are using the hashtags you have identified. Look at their follower count, engagement rates, and the type of content they are sharing. Engage with influencers that are a good fit for you or your business by commenting on their posts, sharing their content, and tagging them in your posts. This will help to build a relationship with your chosen influencer.

To further this relationship you can offer value to your influencer by providing them with products or services and paying them to use this hashtag when sharing content related to your brand.

The basics are: Choose relevant hashtags, keep it simple, research popular hashtags, create your own hashtag, use hashtags on multiple platforms, don’t overuse hashtags, and use trending hashtags to increase your visibility and engagement.

So what are the best practices for using hashtags on each social media channel?

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent social media platform to help promote your business. It is also the first platform to embrace the use of hashtags. Using relevant hashtags here will help you gain maximum exposure and increase your chances of connecting with others significantly. With Twitter, you only have approximately 20 minutes to engage your audience. It is a real-time platform, so it’s important to use hashtags that are timely and relevant to current events or conversations. It doesn’t seem like a lot of time, and it isn’t so you need to make your content stand out.

Effective strategies to use on Twitter include:

Share articles from your blog or webpage using existing hashtags that cover your post topic. Make sure to link back to the corresponding article on your website. This generates important traffic to your webpage which is great for your SEO. It encourages link-building, lead generation and conversions.
Follow trending topics or better still create a trending topic!
Make sure your content stands out and use your hashtags wisely and creatively to gain maximum exposure.
Try to post in specific knowledgeable niches. This will most likely have more longevity than say a trending hashtag.
Remember too many in a single tweet is considered spammy so select the most relevant. For best results on Twitter use 1 -3 hashtags maximum.
Join a Twitter hashtag chat. These chats usually allow anyone to follow or contribute to the conversation. They are almost always pre-scheduled events and cover many diverse topics such as social media, networking and community groups. If you can’t find a chat group relevant to you then why not start your own? The standard practice is to use the word “chat” in the hashtag i.e. #ArtChat #WebDesignChat to denote the topic of conversation.
Last but not least, think about adding value. Don’t be all about promoting your business because people will eventually tune out. Find interesting articles to share or maybe an inspirational story or quote that is worth retweeting.

Hashtags are used throughout Twitter to categorise and organise tweets, making it easier for users to discover and engage with content related to specific topics or themes.

Here are some common areas of Twitter where hashtags are frequently used:

Trending Topics: The “Trending Topics” section of Twitter displays hashtags that are currently popular or gaining traction among users.
Tweet Text: Twitter users often include hashtags within the text of their tweets to make their content more discoverable by other users who are interested in similar topics.
Bio and Profile Description: Many Twitter users include hashtags within their bio or profile description to help other users find their account when searching for specific topics or themes.
Twitter Chats: Twitter users often organise and participate in Twitter chats focused on specific topics, using a unique hashtag to organise the conversation and make it easy to follow.
Twitter Spaces: Twitter Spaces is one of the newer features on Twitter that allows users to participate in live audio conversations. Even though Twitter Spaces is an audio-based feature, hashtags can still be used in this context. For example, hashtags can be used for discoverability by including relevant hashtags in the conversation’s title or description, Twitter Spaces conversations can attract users who are interested in that topic. Additionally, including a unique hashtag related to the conversation can help promote the event and encourage other users to join the conversation.
Advertising: Twitter Ads allows advertisers to target users based on specific hashtags that they use or follow, allowing businesses to reach their target audience more effectively.

Overall, hashtags are a fundamental part of Twitter and are used in various areas of the platform to make content more discoverable, facilitate conversations, and connect users around shared interests and topics.

Remember Twitter is all about audience engagement, so you have to engage too! Always experiment to see what drives the best results for you. For more information please see the Twitter guide to using hashtags

Instagram

Instagram is a visual platform mostly used for sharing images. It’s very forgiving where hashtags are concerned so you can use lots of them here. In fact, you can use up to 30 hashtags. I feel it’s always a good idea to use them all in this instance, just think how much valuable exposure you leave on the table if you don’t.

Effective hashtag strategies to use on Instagram include:

Use a mix of popular and niche hashtags. Some popular hashtags include #instagood, #photooftheday.
Create your own unique hashtags for your brand or campaign.
Participate in trending conversations to increase your visibility and engagement.
Use hashtags that are relevant to your location or industry. For example, if you are a restaurant in Dublin City, use hashtags like #dublinrestaurants #dublinfoodie or #dublinwine to reach people in your area.

Put #Hashtags on your Instagram Stories.

There is also a story section on Instagram as I’m sure you all know by now. This Story Feature is completely supportive of hashtags. This means that your story is visible to everyone who searches your hashtags in your stories. As instagram Stories have a short 24 hour lifespan they are typically used to share more personal or informal moments with your followers and can include various interactive features like polls, quizzes, music, and stickers.

Put #Hashtags on your Instagram Reels.

Hashtags can also be added to Instagram Reels. Instagram Reels is a feature that allows you to create and share short-form videos, and by using relevant hashtags you can increase the visibility of your content to a wider audience. When creating an Instagram Reel, you can add up to 30 hashtags in the caption or in the comments section to categorise your content. Using popular and relevant hashtags can help your Reel appear in the “Explore” section of Instagram which is so advantageous and a powerful way to reach more potential viewers. Additionally, using your branded hashtags specific to your business or campaign can help increase brand awareness and engagement.

LinkedIn now encourages its users to use hashtags on its platform. This will help others find your LinkedIn content to further establish your professionalism on the platform. If however, you are a Private User, then you must change your privacy settings from Private to Public to enable the visibility of your content which includes hashtags.

Again you don’t want to appear spammy here so a maximum of three hashtags should be enough. A good tip is to keep your hashtags relevant to the topic covered in your content to be shared.

Effective strategies for using hashtags on LinkedIn include:

Use hashtags that are relevant to the content of your post and the audience you want to reach. This will increase the chances of your post being discovered by people who are interested in the topic.
Use a mix of popular and niche hashtags: Using popular hashtags can help increase the visibility of your post, but it also means that your post will be competing with a lot of other posts. Using niche hashtags that are more specific to your industry or topic can help your post stand out and reach a more targeted audience.
Keep it brief: LinkedIn recommends using no more than 5 hashtags per post, but using 1-3 relevant hashtags is usually sufficient.
Create your own unique hashtag: Consider creating your own unique hashtag for your brand or campaign. This can help increase brand awareness and make it easier for people to find all of your related content in one place.
Monitor and analyze your hashtags: Keep track of the performance of your hashtags and adjust your strategy accordingly. Use LinkedIn analytics to see which hashtags are generating the most engagement and adjust your hashtag usage accordingly.
Use hashtags in comments: You can also use hashtags in the comments of your post to increase visibility and engagement. This can also make your post more discoverable in LinkedIn search results.

Facebook

Facebook is great for posting recent work or new products, with links to your website’s portfolio or products page. Their algorithm favours content that generates engagement, so it’s important to use hashtags that are relevant to your audience and encourage engagement. Use hashtags very sparingly here and keep them on-topic. Recent surveys have suggested that the overuse of hashtags on Facebook can do more harm than good. In fact, Facebook posts without a hashtag can often fare better than those with a hashtag. It’s best to experiment here maybe stick to 1 or 2 and see what works best.

Here are some best practices for using hashtags on Facebook:

Use 1-2 relevant hashtags per post.
Avoid using too many hashtags or irrelevant hashtags.
Use hashtags that are already popular on Facebook.
Participate in trending conversations to increase your visibility and engagement.
Create your own unique hashtags for your brand or campaign.

Pinterest is a visual search engine, so it’s important to use hashtags that are relevant to your content and help you reach your target audience. Using relevant and specific hashtags on your Pinterest content can help your content appear in search results, home feeds, and the “Related Pins” section. As always, it’s important to use hashtags that are relevant to your content and niche, as well as popular hashtags that are commonly used by users searching for your type of content.

Here are some best practices for using hashtags on Pinterest:

Pinterest allows users to use up to 20 hashtags per Pin, but it’s best to use 2-5 hashtags per Pin that are most relevant to your content.
It’s always good to use a mix of popular hashtags along with niche hashtags.
Create your own unique hashtags for your brand or campaign.
Use hashtags that are relevant to your location or industry.
Use keywords in your pin descriptions to help your content appear in search results.

Remember to create visually appealing content, engage with your audience, and use keywords and hashtags to increase the visibility of your content.

TikTok

TikTok is a video-based platform that has its own unique culture and trends. Users can create short-form videos with music, filters, and other effects. It has exploded in popularity over the past few years, with over 1 billion monthly active users.

Here are some best practices for using hashtags on TikTok:

Use 3-5 relevant hashtags per video.
Use a mix of popular and niche hashtags.
TikTok is known for its viral challenges and trends, so use popular hashtags and participate in challenges to increase your visibility and reach a wider audience.
Use hashtags that are relevant to your location or industry.
Create your own unique hashtags for your brand or campaign.

What about Hashtags in the Metaverse?

Hashtags are also starting to make their way into the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a term used to describe social media, augmented reality (AR) virtual reality (VR) environments, and other cutting-edge technologies that create an immersive and engaging online experience. In these virtual worlds, hashtags can be used to categorise content and make it easier for users to discover and explore new areas or experiences.

As the Metaverse continues to grow and evolve, hashtags could become an increasingly important tool for businesses to connect with consumers in new and engaging ways. By creating branded hashtags that relate to their products or services, businesses can make it easier for users to find and interact with their brand in virtual and augmented reality environments. Additionally, businesses can use hashtags to mark specific locations or elements within these virtual worlds, allowing users to discover and engage with their brand in more immersive ways. The Metaverse is potentially an exciting new frontier that will become a more integral part of our digital lives. This means that the businesses who embrace the use of hashtags in this space will be paving the way for new and innovative ways of communicating, connecting and staying ahead of the curve.

Use your hashtags wisely (don’t overuse them!). Keep up to date with what’s trending, but only use trends that are relevant. You can check the relevance of Twitter trends or use tools such as Google Trends to gain insights into recent popularity spikes worldwide. Google Trends allow you to examine what’s getting people excited on a country-by-country basis or in select specific categories such as business and entertainment. However please note piggybacking on trending hashtags for traffic’s sake is just a no-no. Make your hashtags simple, memorable and unique, and try not to over generalise.

Remember, the primary goal of social media is to foster communication and community building. It is therefore important to engage with your followers by responding to comments, liking and sharing their content, and following other relevant accounts. This can help build a community around your brand and increase brand loyalty.

Start Using Hashtags to Expand your Content’s Reach Now

When used correctly hashtags really are a powerful marketing tool. The next time you have something new to share, think about how you can use your social media channels to get maximum exposure. Don’t forget, it’s always a good idea to include a link back to your website or landing page where you can include a call to action for your potential clients, visitors or customers.

If you having difficulty coming up with relevant hashtags there are a number of tools you can use to assist you.

Hashtagify: is a free tool you can use to find hashtags. You can search for real-time data and insights about any hashtag on Twitter and Instagram: popularity ranking, related hashtags, trends, and much more.

RiteTag: Get instant hashtag suggestions for images and texts on desktop and mobile. Based on real-time hashtag engagement.

Mention: This tool tracks mentions of your brand and its hashtags across all social media.

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How to use Hashtags on Social Media

How to use Hashtags and how they can benefit your Social Media Campaigns

Social media is a great way to communicate in a more personal and meaningful way with potential and regular customers about new products and services, or upcoming events and promotions.

Hashtags, when used correctly, help you to find and engage your target audience, create brand awareness and build brand loyalty.