A social media manager’s guide to hashtags
Every business owner would have heard of the mighty hashtag by now. Some people even drop them into their conversations (#seriously)!
But although hashtags have become commonplace, it still takes some knowledge and experimentation to master the art of hashtags. So, why care about hashtags at all?
Because hashtags are a powerful way of promoting your brand on social media. You use hashtags to drive views, likes and shares and make your content discoverable to an audience searching for what you’re creating.
And you can do all this for free! Unlike pay-per-click advertising on social media, hashtags are entirely free to use. All you need to do is research what hashtags are ‘trending’, what people are searching for, and how to write a hashtag.
What are hashtags, and where did they pop up from?
The hashtag trend in social media started a few years ago with them being widely used on Twitter (in 2009), one of the first social media platforms to take off for business.
Since then, other social media platforms have grown (and taken over) in popularity, so hashtags are now used extensively on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and TikTok.
Using a hashtag, you can connect your social media content to a topic, event, theme or conversation as hashtags group conversations or content around a specific topic. By doing this, you’re helping people quickly find the content they’re interested in.
Example: Have you ever attended an event where they’ve encouraged you to share your thoughts or pictures of the day on your social media and use their dedicated hashtag? The company will be promoting this hashtag so anyone looking for what happened at the event can easily find the content. It’s a great way to create hype around your event.
Are hashtags still necessary and widely used?
YES! If your aim for social media is to market your brand (and honestly – this should be every business owner’s aim!), you 100% need to use hashtags.
It’s a super easy way to ensure that your target audience (those actively searching for info on your topic) finds your content. You produce brilliant content, use the correct hashtags, and they will find you.
Although hashtags are used on most social media platforms, they remain wildly popular on Twitter and Instagram more than the others.
FYI – On LinkedIn and Instagram, users can follow hashtags and people. So, if you’ve used relevant hashtags, you will increase your followers (and they’re people who are actively searching for your content).
How many hashtags should be used on different social media platforms?
Hashtags should be subtle yet powerful. Hashtag volume should never be overdone. It’s like spammy SEO people jamming keywords into blogs where they look out of place.
Here’s what’s recommended per post:
Instagram – 3-5 hashtags
Facebook – 2-3 hashtags
LinkedIn – 1-5 hashtags
Twitter – 1-2 hashtags (limited by character count)
TikTok – 1-5 hashtags (limited by character count)
Keep your hashtags relevant to your business and industry
All sorts of businesses can effectively use hashtags, including all service-based or professional businesses (i.e. you don’t need to be selling a product).
The trick for increasing your organic reach with hashtags is to keep them relevant to your business or industry.
Tip – Check out the hashtags that influencers or brands like you use. People interested in relevant content will be searching for those hashtags and are more likely to find you if you’re using those hashtags too.
You can create a hashtag related to your brand or product, but you need to make it catchy enough for people to share. For example, Coke has found amazing success with #ShareACoke rather than #CocaCola as people as they encouraged people to share pictures ‘sharing a coke’ and tag their brand with the catchy hashtag.
Category hashtags are another way to create hashtags. These need to be broad but closely related to your subject. These hashtags don’t connect to a brand.
As mentioned earlier, you’ll also see event hashtags (limited to that event only) and campaign hashtags (used short-term for things like product launches).
5 steps to create a hashtag strategy
1. Include a mix of popular, relevant and branded hashtags.
2. Do your research on hashtags to find out what hashtags are popular in your industry.
3. Consider using trending hashtags.
4. Analyse which hashtags have been successful on your posts (i.e. what drew traffic in?).
5. Combine popular hashtags with niche ones. Popular hashtags will put you on the map, but you risk being drowned out if it’s used on millions of posts. Niche or location-based hashtags help you to stand out to the audience that is most relevant to you.
How to bring your hashtag strategy to life
As a social media manager, I research relevant hashtags and create a ‘hashtag bank’ that I use depending on the post. I also make sure the post caption relates to the hashtag I use.
Hashtag hack: Here’s how you can find hashtags on Instagram:
1. Use the search function to type in a keyword relevant to your post, and select the tags tab. Look for tags you’d like to use
2. Check out what others in your niche or industry use on their posts and make a note (but don’t use their branded ones!)
Popular/trending hashtags:
Here are some of the most popular and trending hashtags on Instagram. These will change over time and can be a niche for certain times of the year. Combining these with other relevant hashtags is the best practice to stand out.
#love
#instagood
#photooftheday or #picoftheday
#fashion
#travel
#beautiful
#happy
#cute
#follow or #followme or #like4like
#selfie
Need help creating your hashtag bank?
If the thought of researching hashtags doesn’t thrill you, or you know you’ll end up spending way too long getting lost in the rabbit hole of reading other people’s content, I’m here to help you.
Creating hashtag banks is part of my role as your social media manager. I research what works for your industry and business and ensure we incorporate relevant hashtags to get your content found by the right people.
If your social media efforts aren’t making the impact you’d like, maybe it’s time you look closely at hashtags!
Please get in touch, and let's create your hashtag bank.