At AS Digital we understand that marketing jargon can be pretty confusing. If you’ve ever wondered how to use hashtags, or what they are, we’re here to help.
As new media becomes the dominant platform for marketing and advertising, hashtags are a great tool for making sure that your content gets in front of the right audience.
What is a hashtag?
A hashtag is a way of highlighting keywords and categorising content when posting to many social media platforms. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all have hashtag functionality. The hash character (#) is placed before the keyword and often integrated into a post’s sentence, rather than being added together after the body text.
For example:
// My new #vintagebicycle is great!
As opposed to
// My new bike is great, and so vintage! #vintagebicycle
You can search social platforms for any posts that include a specific hashtag. This helps platforms group topics together and help users find what they’re looking for. If you’re searching for our #vintagebicycle hashtag, you’ll get to see all relevant posts that have included that hashtag!
This makes content easier to find, in turn, increasing a post’s reach. Hashtags are also a great way to group relevant content from events, locations, venues, competitions and more.
How to use hashtags
- Do your research – have a look at what your competitors are hashtagging so that you’ll know what relevant audiences are looking for. Try to avoid overusing identical hashtags in multiple posts.
- Make sure your accounts are public so that your posts reach as many people as possible.
- Place the # character before the keyword or term that you want to turn into a hashtag. For example, #vintagebicycle
- Spaces, special characters and punctuation will end or break a hashtag, so don’t include them in your hashtag. Using the above example of #vintagebicycle, the hashtag would break if you separated the words ‘vintage’ and ‘bicycle’ with a space or special character.
- Make hashtags short, punchy, relevant and specific. You can use up to 30 hashtags on certain platforms, but it’s recommended not to use more than 10 for readability.
- Once you’re happy with your content and have included your hashtags, publish your post!
Tip: If you’d like to hide your hashtags from your post, you can add them to the comments section instead. This way, they won’t be immediately visible to your audience.
Why should I use hashtags?
Hashtags are an easy and cost-free way to make sure your posts reach a broader audience than just those in your immediate network. When you use a hashtag, your post or Story will appear on that hashtag’s page or Story. People can also choose to follow certain hashtags so that they don’t miss out on content just like yours.
Using hashtags means that your content gets more eyeballs, and more eyeballs means more engagement! Hashtags don’t mean you’ll show up in every search, but they do mean you’ll turn up in the right searches that are more likely to lead to your desired outcomes, like a sale.
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about hashtags or other ways to reach a larger audience,
