7 Hashtag Tips and Strategies That Work
Hashtags, which are usually a word or group of words (placed together with no space in between) preceded by the hash sign (#), were made very popular since social media became a huge deal in this digital age. It is actually a meta tag used on social media networking platforms, which makes it super easy for people to share user-specific content. It also helps social media users to find very specific content on these platforms.
Just like how the internet is wired with so many domains being opened daily and so many websites publishing content on a daily basis, it becomes almost impossible to find something specific or relevant without the help of search engines. So, what search engines are to the web, is what hashtags are to social media.
How Do Hashtags Work?
Hashtags on social media work in two ways, benefiting two different types of users: the content creator, who wants his or her content to be seen by a specific type of audience, and then a user who is looking for a specific kind of content. The way to connect both the content creator to the end user (the one that will eventually consume the content) is to use a specific hashtag.
It must be a phrase that the target audience is likely to use to search for that specific content on any social media platform. This implies that with hashtags, users can sift through the millions of content published on social media on a daily basis, and the content creators can reach more people on social media easily.
If you would like to find out the specific hashtags and marketing strategies that work best for your business, it would be a great idea to get in touch with a digital marketing agency for assistance. So, a smart question is how do you create the kind of hashtags (or use the kind of hashtags) that will give your content more visibility to the right audience? In this article, we’ll be sharing 7 hashtag tips and strategies that work, so that you can start getting some good value for the content you share on social media.
1. Review your hashtags often
This is one very important hashtag tip that can really have a great impact on the kind of content you publish on social media. You can start by exploring various hashtags first, and then see the ones that are performing. You can do this for a week or more for various posts. Then closely look at your high performing post and analyse the ones that are performing very well.
2. Know the limits of hashtags
Every social media platform has a limit of the number of hashtags that you can use per post. So, find out the limit. For Instagram, the limit is thirty per posts. Twitter and Facebook don’t have a limit so you can explore various hashtags. It is always best to work with the limit that each platform has so that you can best maximize it.
3. Study how other high performing accounts use hashtags
This is one of the simplest ways to find and use relevant hashtags that can help you improve your visibility on social media. Look out for other brands that inspire you or that you like and take note of the kind of hashtag they use. You can use a repost tool to make it easy to copy the exact hashtag they use and then use it on yours to see how well your post is able to perform. People that have a great following, asides celebrities on social media, probably use a lot of high performing hashtags that are working for them. Take a look at their hashtags and see what you can adopt in yours.
4. Create and use hashtag specific to your brand
In addition to other hashtags that you want to use, it is always smart to use a hashtag that is a reflection of your brand. You can use your brand name or your handle on social media and put the hashtag sign in front of it. This way, when people are looking to get more updates from your account, especially if you are an authority on social media, it would make it easy for them to find new updates from you.
However, over time, that hashtag might become crowded, because many smaller brands, who share the same target audience as yours, might also want to cash in on the visibility that your branded hashtag can give them. At this stage, it would be wise to beef up your branded hashtag, so people can find more specific content that you post on. For instance, if your branded hashtag was #BellasCouture, you can beef it up with #BellasCoutureAprilDesigns, #BellasCoutureInLondon, #BellasCoutureXAddidas (in cases of a partnership).
5. Use a hashtag creator tool
There are quite a lot of tools out there that can really help with finding the right hashtags that fit well into the industry of the brand. Some of these tools can also help tell you which hashtags get the most engagement. In addition to all these, these tools can also help create hashtag relevant to your brand, by just giving it a keyword that reflects the industry of your brand. Then it creates multiples of hashtags from that single headword. Some of the top hashtag generators are All Hashtag, Ritetag, Hashtagify, Hashtag Generator #HashMe.
6. Mix short broad hashtags with long niche ones
This is one of the smartest ways to get more high performing posts. You can mix short broad or generic hashtags like #women #men #man #woman #girl #boy #Friday #africa #london and so on, with more niche hashtags like #motivationquotes #motivationmonday #happypeople #workingwomen and so on. You need to be creative with how you mix it. You should have a clear idea of who you are trying to target, this would give you an idea about the kind of hashtags that they are likely to use when searching for something specific.
7. Use top brands and ongoing events or trends
This is also another smart way to cash in on the boost that this kind of hashtags can give the post. Note the events that are currently going on and use it in addition to other hashtags. You can also use the branded hashtags of brands sharing the same target audience as yours.