What was once just a fun way to describe a situation quickly turned into a very powerful digital marketing tool for businesses.
A hashtag is a type of metadata tag used on social networks, allowing users to apply dynamic, user-generated tagging which makes it possible for others to easily find messages with a specific theme or content.
In 2019 we ask ourselves: “Are they still worth incorporating into your digital content?”
Let’s see some statistics:
- Facebook: A post with one or two hashtags will receive, on average, 177 more interactions than posts without hashtags.
- Instagram: Posts with hashtags receive 12% more engagement than posts without hashtags.
And an important thing to all the Pinterest lovers: Hashtags are important on Pinterest too! I know many of you are not using them on Pinterest, but if you look at Pinterest “help” articles you will see that even Pinterest recognizes #hashtags are “a thing”, so don’t miss on some free traffic and put some #hashtags in your description. (to read Pinterest article about hash tags click HERE).
Want to learn how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website? Read here.
Using hashtags in your social media content is more relevant in 2019 than it was even three years ago.
With the recent changes in Facebook and Instagram’s algorithms, it’s estimated that 70% of your company’s organic social media content is going unseen. Hashtags can help your content get discovered.
In 2019, a good hashtag can drive an entire digital marketing campaign.
Now that you understand that you need to use hashtags you are wondering: Which Hashtags Should My Business Use?
So we know that hashtags can increase your social media reach — but which hashtags should you use?
Some hashtags just make sense. Like using your business name as a hashtag. Why? Because you never know when you will become famous and people will start following your brand 🙂 Yes, I know that you are maybe a small business now, but why not invest in the future 🙂 Anyway, this is just my opinion. You gotta think big, and big things will happen to you, right?
There are also free hashtag tools available online that can help you figure out the best hashtags for the content you’re promoting.
The website best-hashtags.com is great for finding popular hashtags in your industry. Their algorithm calculates the best hashtags for you based on historical data. For example, I searched the hashtag #SocialMediaManager, and it showed me the most popular #socialmediamanager hashtags with statistics on how popular this hashtag is, how many posts per hours are using it and how popular this hashtag is on social media platforms.
You also should always check for banned hashtags.
There is a great online app called iqhashtags where you can check your Social Media page for banned hashtags. They have a free version where you can check for banned hashtags unlimited times. Check it out HERE.
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Don’t Use Spaces
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Stick to a Few Hashtags Per Post
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Use Hashtags in Sentences
Social media is constantly developing. What is #TrendingNow may not be so popular in a month from now, so use everything that you can while you still can.
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Great points, Karmen! Hashtags are a great way to build, monitor and strengthen a brand while helping its audience find it on social media. It is also a great way to bring its audience together on a given platform. Yet many businesses do not have a focused strategy for their social media engagement.
Thanks Karmen, excellent advice. I was delighted when LinkedIn informed me that one of my video posts was trending in #tips the other day. Woohoo! A little hashtag breakthrough. Hope there are more coming. Definitely going to add my brand name #InspiringMompreneurs to more of my posts now. Brilliant suggestion. Have only been using it on Instagram.
Thank you for this Karmen! I have struggled with using hashtags since they became s thing LOL. I have slowly started to integrate it into my posts and Pinterest. Just started using Instagram again so easing back into that as well. What would u say is a decent amount of hashtags to use? Does it depend on the platform or should you use around the same amount for all? Thank u for your time!
Thank you for all these great tips Karmen and thank you for clarifying something I was wondering about… whether it’s best to add hashtags after the description or whether I should include hashtags within my description. I’ve always loved how it looks to add it in my text but then I see other people just putting them in at the end. I’m going to try this out and see how it works for me. I read that article on banned hashtags and found it super interesting!
Hi Karmen! I strongly believe hashtags will always “be a thing” It is so popular and yes a simple word can describe a whole sentence 🙂 I always used hashtags and ps I did notice that posts including hashtags do receive more comments ect….. Thanks for the tips!
Great tips here! and thank you for the mention!
Love Pin Pal Media xx
Shared! This is AWESOME stuff! Thank you!