How to use hashtags on social media

TAYLOR CHIYANGWA

Facebook just re­ported that they now have 2 billion active users every month and that’s just under 2 thirds of the world’s population on that so­cial website.

LinkedIn recently surpassed the 500 million active users mark. These trends are not isolated indeed, they are a re­flection of the ever-increasing popularity of social media in our lives. It is true that we no longer go on social media, but we now live online.

Entrepreneurs should fol­low these statistics with keen interest because such vast numbers present almost in­finite opportunities to make money and promote their brands & businesses.

One way of taking advan­tage of this is to use hashtags and in this post, I’m going to show you how you can do that.

What Are Hashtags & Why Are They Used?

A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#) and is used within a post, comment or message to identify a keyword or topic of interest and facilitate a search for it.

Whenever you add a hashtag to your post, it is immediately indexed by the social network and searchable by other us­ers. Hashtags can expand your content reach, amplify your brand, target your market, get your content found, improve your SEO, and more.

How To Use Hashtags On Social Media

There are various ways to use hashtags.

1. Brand Hashtags

These are hashtags that pro­mote your brand or slogan or pay-off line. You want to have a hashtag that’s unique to your business, so research when you are creating your hashtag.

You also want a hashtag that’s catchy so that your au­dience will easily remember it and will be more likely to use it on social media.

You can ask your customers to tweet, update statuses and upload pics using your hashtag so that it gets viral. This in ef­fect, means you have to serve your existing customers well

so that they become your free brand ambassadors.

You can also create a compe­tition where you will ask your audience use your hashtag and win a prize. This will make your hashtag go viral and it will increase your reach.

2. Campaign Hashtags

You can create hashtags for specific campaigns or promo­tions. For example, if you are running a 50% off promotion, you can use the hashtag #Two­ForOne.

You then ask your custom­ers to include the use of your hashtag as a requirement to take advantage of the sale.

When

they use your hashtag, their friends and followers will see it and this increases your reach as their followers can also engage with you.

For example, Pizza Inn can use the #TerrificTuesdays and increase awareness. Some peo­ple who might have forgotten about will see the hashtag on a friends thread and go and buy.

3. Popular hashtags

A popular or trending hashtag is a topic that has become very popular (don’t confuse trending topics with trending hashtags). When you see a trend that relates to your business, engage in it by using the tag. By using a trending tag in your content update, you can potentially get your message seen to a massive au­dience. Your content update can be seen by more than just your Fans and Followers – and it’s free.

You can use these tools to find trending hashtags

–Hashtags.org (general trending hashtags and con­stant trends)

-Statigram (Instagram spe­cific)

-What’s the trend (popular hashtags in the last thirty days)

-Twitonomy (find personal hashtags similar to your con­tent)

-Trendsmap (geographical distribution of trends)

Monitor trending tags by using the sites and apps men­tioned above. When you see a topic trending that is related to your business – make a con­tent update, and include the hashtag.

4. Content Hashtags

Content hashtags are hashtags you use in your posts. They are not branded (and not used to define your business and marketing).

They aren’t necessar­ily trending or highly popu­lar. They are simply common hashtags that are related to your post content.

Content hashtags improve the Search Engine Optimisa­tion (SEO) of your posts. They get your updates seen by your consumers who are search­ing for, or using, the hashtag words.

Some categories of common hashtags include:

• Product hashtags
• Event hashtags
• Location hashtags
• Holiday hashtags

Rules For Using Hashtags On Social Media

1. A good hashtag should be memorable, unique and rel­evant
2. Capitalise the first letter of each word
3. No spaces or special punc­tuation or the @ symbol
4. Always use the same spell­ing, if you misspell it, you cre­ate a new hashtag
5. Each social network has its own specific hashtag etiquette, take the time to see how your audience uses hashtags on eve­ry social network.
6. Don’t spam. Related to this, while you can use many hashtags in one post, just re­member to keep it clean and not spammy and awkward
7. Make sure your hashtag works i.e it’s all blue.

Taylor Chiyangwa is a digital marketing and online entrepreneurship enthusi­ast. He helps business own­ers (both online and offline) grow their sales and increase their reach via digital chan­nels. How are you using hashtags in your business? We want to hear from you. Email us on hararehub@gmail.com or call us on 0718924393.