Ever wondered how the colloquially used ‘pound sign’ (#) became a social media Optimization tool, urging digital marketers and businesses to focus their marketing strategies around the sign? In 2007, when Nate Ridder first used the symbol to reach the global audience to make them aware of the San Diego fire (#sandiegofire), little did the world know that a new internet sensation was born!
The same year a blogger, Stowe Boyd, first called them “hashtags” in a blog post, and in 2009, Twitter formally adopted the hashtag symbol. Thereon, Twitter hyperlinked anything with the # symbol in front; following the move, Twitter introduced “Trending Topics,” and with this, hashtags became the talk of the internet world.
Hashtags are crucial on any social media post as they help index your content on various social media networks, resulting in almost anyone being able to find your content based on the related search. People have become more aware of the visibility this symbol provides and are trying to use the best Instagram hashtags for better reach on the image-sharing platform.
However, hashtags for brand promotion are not just limited to Instagram. All social media platforms extensively use hashtags with the latest trending topics for the highest reach. Why so? With Hashtags, even people who aren’t already your followers will be able to find your content if they are looking for similar topics related to the hashtags. Moreover, using the right hashtags helps expand your social media reach to potential followers.
Want to Stay Relevant? Use Hashtags (#)!
If you want to take your product, service or business from Hush Hush to the buzzword on the internet, you need hashtags. Why are hashtags so important? It is because they help you stay relevant on the internet. With the ever-increasing content on the web, it’s a formidable task to appear first on the Google Search engine.
Hashtags are the best social media Optimization tools that help you move out of this digital clutter of information and assist you in appearing on related searches on various social media platforms.
The following are reasons why you need hashtags:
- Hashtags are a life-saver for social media users. They simplify the process of searching, as a hashtag showcases results for each post using that hashtag.
- As a business, using a relevant hashtag helps you target your potential customers and helps makes your information available to all.
- Hashtags also compel an action; when a user sees a post of their interest, they are likely to spend more time looking through content related to the hashtag.
- The evolution of hashtags from just a search tool to a marketing tool has been magnificent! They are increasingly being used on platforms, impacting the amount of information directly reaching social media users.
- Hashtags have become revolutionary, inciting social and cultural transformation. Unique hashtags make messages stand out and add value to users searching for related topics.
#Hashtagging Your Way Through Social Media
Did you know that tweets with hashtags received twice more engagement than those without hashtags on Twitter? According to a recent study, tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% greater user engagement than those with three or more hashtags, thus aiding social media Optimization. If you are wondering how many hashtags are ideal for different social media platforms, the following guide will be relevant:
As discussed above, tweets with a maximum of two hashtags have better engagement than tweets with three or more hashtags on Twitter.
On Facebook, a single hashtag is sufficient to serve the purpose of reaching out to a larger audience on other social media platforms.
While Instagram allows users to use up to 30 hashtags per post, it is ideal to use 11 hashtags for better engagement on the photo-sharing platform.
Google+
For people using hashtags on Google+, there is no limit to the number of hashtags you can use. However, using relevant and grouped hashtags at the end of the post receives better engagement.
On Pinterest, users can add hashtags to the description of the pins. While there is no limit to the number of hashtags, ideally, only relevant hashtags are on the pins.
Enhance Your Business With social media Optimization:
Instagram allows the usage of multiple hashtags and is one of the best social media platforms for boosting your marketing strategy for your business. While Instagram allows a maximum of
30 hashtags, it's not ideal to use all 30 hashtags. The best Instagram hashtags are the ones
that are the most relevant to the content.
Social media marketers experiment with Instagram hashtags, and findings suggest longer
hashtags between 21 and 24 characters perform best on the social media platform. There are
many ways you can use Instagram hashtags for social media optimization:
- Businesses can add Instagram hashtags on their page biography section that will lead users to the hashtag page section.
- You can also create new and unique hashtags for user-generated content campaigns, which can become trending topics, thus highlighting your product/services.
- Using hashtags in Instagram Stories helps drive more visibility from users.
- Businesses can also follow trending hashtags to discover content relevant to their business and target audience.
- Moreover, users must place hashtags at the end of the caption in an Instagram post to keep the content neat and organised.
Start Trending With Twitter Hashtags!
Businesses utilise trending Twitter hashtags to attract the relevant audience interested in their content. Twitter hashtags are the best medium for social media Optimization and are used extensively for brand promotions. Many businesses have reported that users discovered their products/services through hashtags on their social media posts which helped them generate more leads.
The “What’s happening” sidebar on the desktop showcases Twitter trends that display the topics currently picking up momentum on Twitter and driving the conversations. Such topics could be news stories, popular hashtags on global trends, or regional happenings that appear before Twitter users with related interests and searches.
Optimize Your Content Using Facebook Hashtags
While Facebook introduced the usage of hashtags in 2015, they haven’t updated the hashtag guidelines since 2016 and brands and businesses wonder about the best use of hashtags on Facebook. However, this social media platform is still the best medium for promoting brands and enhancing your reach.
As the ideal character limit for Facebook captions is 40-80 characters, there is less room for hashtags compared to the scope on Instagram or Twitter. However, this doesn’t hinder popular brands from using hashtags in their post captions as they see fit. Facebook uses an algorithm for distinct URL tracking with hashtags to group or categorise conversations.
While using hashtags for social media Optimization on Facebook, ensure the hashtags are newsjacking and topical, as using trending hashtags helps you reach a larger audience. Moreover, on Facebook, less number of hashtags provide better engagement and user experience. According to research, maximum engagement on Facebook occurs when users add only a single hashtag to the content.
Engage Your Professional Network With LinkedIn Hashtags
LinkedIn uses hashtags to categorise, organise, and filter user content for better experience. The social media platforms for professionals similarly use hashtags as Instagram hashtags. Businesses and brands on LinkedIn use the most popular hashtags to offer better user engagement. However, LinkedIn hashtags are clickable on the mobile app, not on the desktop.
While using LinkedIn hashtags for social media Optimization, you can:
- Add hashtags to your profile to enhance its visibility across the platform.
- You can also add hashtags to the body of your LinkedIn Pulse articles or use them as article keywords for better reach.
- Users can incorporate hashtags in comments on other people’s posts as it helps them associate their names with hashtags.
- Hashtags can also be included in a status update, making your posts searchable on LinkedIn.
Making Viral Videos With YouTube Hashtags
On YouTube, users find videos about popular topics using hashtags. If you wish to use hashtags for your YouTube videos, you can upload video content and provide hashtags in the title or description of the content. YouTube hashtags are hyperlinked and clickable to showcase relevant topics.
If You Tubers do not mention hashtags in the title, YouTube uses hashtags from descriptions. YouTube highlights the first three hashtags users have added in the video description, by making them appear below the video and above the title. Popular hashtags used in the video description are the best ways for social media Optimization on YouTube and help improve the video reach.
YouTube hashtags must be relevant and the more hashtags added to the description, the less relevant the video becomes. Adding more than 15 hashtags is a bane for your video as the chances are YouTube algorithm ignores all of them or removes your video from your uploads. Using the right hashtags relevant to the content helps you achieve better views and could even make your video go viral!
Final Thoughts
Social media is evolving, and the digital marketing space has bloomed significantly. Using the new age technological innovations and social media marketing tools to improve your business is the first step toward the digital revolution. Top brands are already catching the drift and utilising these trends to transform the look and feel of their brands in the digital space.
We at MMW help small and local businesses achieve the target of reaching out to the maximum number of users on digital platforms to enhance their sales and improve brand visibility. We have worked with some of the most premium brands in Australia and revolutionised the appearance of their brand on various social media platforms.
So do not wait any longer. Grab this opportunity to transform your website and social media marketing strategy with MMW. Call our experts today to learn more!
