Social media demands a fresh approach. Modern marketers can’t play by the rules of a decade ago and expect success today. Marketers must adapt to the ways that audiences access information now. Hashtags are one way to do that.
It’s reasonable to be wary of hashtags. Too many hashtags make posts hard to read, and look spammy. Poorly considered hashtag campaigns have caused several highly-publicized social media disasters.
But ignoring hashtags all together bypasses one of Twitter’s chief discovery tools. Each hashtag links to a stream of all posts with the same tag. Without hashtags, only your followers are likely to see your tweets. With well-chosen hashtags, your tweets may attract new followers by catching the attention of people browsing tweets in your field or subject. With that in mind, social media marketers must learn best practices for hashtag use.
How to Hashtag
- Use Hashtagify.me to check the popularity of hashtags when you compose tweets. The site gives each hashtag a popularity rating of 1-100, with the most popular earning 100. It also displays a graphic of related hashtags and their relative popularity, as well as a stream of recent top tweets using the hashtag.
- Browse the tweets of your competitors, followers and influencers in your field. It’s not enough for a hashtag to be popular, you want to use hashtags that are trending with your audience.
- Experiment with style. There are two chief ways to use hashtags. Try both and see what you like and what gets more engagement. The first is to integrate hashtags into your tweets, such as this recent @MosherMullen tweet: “Follow these 5 steps to streamline your
#communications: bit.ly/U6yfqx.” The second is to add a hashtag at the end of a tweet, like so: “Pay attention to what’s moving your audience to improve Facebook engagement. bit.ly/1iDfnuU #socialmedia.” - Vary the hashtags you use. For example, when promoting a blog post with several tweets, you might choose to use a different relevant hashtag in each tweet to broaden your potential reach.
How Not to Hashtag
- Never jump on board a trending hashtag unless it is directly relevant to your business. At best, this comes across as spammy and unprofessional. At worst, in the case of a brand that tries to co-opt a hashtag that is part of a sensitive conversation, it will cause offense.
- Don’t overload your tweet with too many hashtags. All hashtags all the time become a meaningless jumble. Stick to one or two hashtags per post as a general rule.
- Avoid hashtagging general words. Stick to the words and phrases most relevant to your posts and brand.
This doesn’t even begin to cover creating your own brand hashtag, or using a hashtag as part of a Twitter chat. If you’re new to the form it’s best to start with these guidelines. Once you are more comfortable, you can further develop your hashtag strategy.
______
For more social media tips, read:
What Makes Social Media a Valuable Business Tool?
