More About Hashtag
Do you use hashtags in your social media posts?
If you do, you would know that hashtags are an excellent approach to driving impressions for likes, views, and shares of posts. Previously referred to as pound motif (#), the hashtag can be used seamlessly to make your social media content discoverable and attract users’ attention.
Using hashtags correctly can ensure interested individuals land on your profile, thereby growing your influencers and followers.
So, what is a hashtag? Simply put, it is any word or phrase following the hash sign used on social media websites and applications to mark digital content on a specific topic.
Did you know that, initially, hashtags were used on the microblogging platform Twitter? Now, they have become a popular feature of other social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Sharechat, Pinterest, etc.
You can use hashtags anywhere on social media, such as in the caption or comment, but remember to exclude spaces, special characters, and punctuation. You can place hashtags at the beginning, middle, or end of your social media posts and in the comment section.
If your post setting is public, social media users who do not follow you can still find your content with hashtags through the search function.
Mastering the use of hashtags gives users a dynamic approach to interacting with their audience and boosting their social media visibility without additional costs. (Apart from the time needed for research and paying attention to trends, hashtags require no resources and are easy to implement!)
Using hashtags on social media can make a world of difference to your content marketing strategies if you do it correctly. Placing a hashtag for a targeted keyword can be simple, but there are a few basic details every social media user or brand must observe if they want others to find their content with the help of hashtags.
A few tips for using hashtags on social media are as follows:
- Using hashtags for every two words is not advisable. The optimal number of hashtags depends on the social media platform you are using. Using one to three hashtags can have a significant effect in most cases.
- Keep hashtags short and memorable instead of using multiple words in a single tag. You can consider hashtags such as #BlackOutTuesday, which went viral in 2020.
- Avoid using hashtags in every post and use them only when necessary and add value to the content. Using irrelevant hashtags for the sake of trends can decrease engagement and follower count.
- Use particular and detailed hashtags that will lead to more impressions and increased engagement.
The image below shows an appropriate example of a hashtag. It shows the keyword ‘travel’ as a hashtag search on Instagram and millions of travel-related posts in the results, including the top posts. You can similarly search on other social media platforms with popular words or phrases to discover related content.
