Author: Lenka Koubkova
Date of Publication: 12/02/2023
Social media marketing has never been as powerful as it is now. Actually, it allows influencers and businesses to reach out to their audiences, build a brand name or increase their sales. However, to easily get new customers and spread brand awareness even more, you need to do just one simple thing: Use hashtags. So, I would like to give you some tips and hacks on what is the most effective way to use them and what boost comes with them.
Benefits of hashtags
Firstly, hashtags are a useful tool to reach more people and get discovered by users all over the platform. By using them, it makes your content easily accessible, and the algorithm shows your posts to users with common interests. Besides, it is an immense way of labeling and finding niche social media content. In addition, to be effective, it is critical to make it short, precise and simple to spell.
TIPS for powerful and effective hashtags
1. Employ hashtag analytics and tracking websites like Hashtags.org, Trendsmap,
Hashtagify, etc.
2. Use niche-trending and power hashtags to connect and build relationships with your targeted
market.
Hashtag Categories
Well, to properly identify the most competent hashtags, you need to be familiar with five basic categories of them.
Brand hashtags
That is the simplest way of encouraging your community to start a discussion around the raised topic or learn more about your products.
TIP from me
To, even more, raise the participation rate in your hashtag, you can create a contest from it. Everyone who uploads a post using your hashtag will automatically be put into a contest, and one person will win a prize at the end. Just watch how the engagement line will rise. People love to get things for free.
Trending hashtags
When you recognize a trending hashtag relating to your business, don't hesitate to engage in it with relevant content. This is because it could be trending for weeks but also only some days. It's more than significant to post original, witty and eye-catching content with the hashtag as it will have a high volume of videos/posts. Therefore, your content is more likely to get lost in that amount.
Content reflecting hashtags
Those hashtags “#onlinemarketing, #traveltips” etc. aren’t primarily viral. In fact, you should think of them more like an optimizer for content search. What’s more, they become valuable when consumers perform general searches to find a certain item or learn more about a given subject.
Call to action hashtags
Those hashtags, as their name already suggests, are encouraging people to take appropriate actions. These are most useful when you are trying to raise awareness about some taboo topic “#TalkAboutMentalHealth, #GirlsToGirls” etc.
Don’t overcomplicate it
Even though hashtags seem like an easy way to boost your posts, it is also critical to not overuse them. Each social media has its frequency and amount of hashtags that are still competent and will help you to get a wider audience. However, when you cross that line, your hashtags will become just useless. In fact, using 10+ hashtags can reduce engagement by 68.2%, as inferred from the Social Baker study.
Let me list you a quick review of the perfect amount of hashtags per different social media:
Twitter hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 1-2
● Where to put hashtags on Twitter: anywhere in your Tweets (start for emphasis, at the end for context, or to highlight a keyword)
Instagram hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 3-5 (keep it to no more than 9 per post for better engagement)
● Where to put hashtags on Instagram: in an Instagram caption or the comments section
when engaging with your followers.
Facebook hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 2-3
● Where to put hashtags on Facebook: in any part of your written Facebook post or the
comments.
● Also useful for grouping content in private Facebook groups by theme or topic.
ALERT!
As many users are private on Facebook, it’s more challenging to track how users are
interacting with your hashtags.
YouTube hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 3-5
● Where to put hashtags on YouTube: in your brand’s YouTube video title or the video
description.
ALERT!
Don’t use more than 15 hashtags. YouTube will ignore all the hashtags and maybe
even flag your content because of your spammy behavior.
LinkedIn hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 1-5. Be careful! If your post has more than five
hashtags, the LinkedIn algorithm could mark your posts as spam.
● Where to put hashtags on LinkedIn: anywhere in your LinkedIn posts.
Tik Tok hashtags
● The optimal number of hashtags to use: 3-5
● Where to put hashtags on TikTok: in video descriptions
How to reach a wide audience and boost your business on TikTok easily and for free, read
my last article - https://www.visionfactory.org/post/how-to-use-the-tiktok-algorithm
Overall, using hashtags effectively goes beyond casually plugging them into your tweets and posts. On all social media platforms, calculated hashtag marketing can boost impressions, make your content more searchable and encourage users to talk about your brand.