Since the early part of last decade, hashtags have been a fundamental part of social media marketing. This powerful and easy to leverage addition to any social post, offers social and digital marketers another tool through which to engage directly with their audience. A post with more than one hashtags averages more that 12% engagement than those without, making them a worthy use of your time!
Doing your Hashtag Homework:
Research, research and research again! A well thought about hashtag can become key to posts being seen and maximising engagement on your latest, brilliant piece of content. Without a doubt when you start your research through search engines, the top searches will be populated by tools promising to give your post the ‘perfect hashtags’, but this is only part of the story. Therefore, using some elbow grease and digging into your social feeds is a great place to build up a good understanding of the effective and most used hashtags, within your niche.
Types of Hashtags:
Including different types of hashtags into your content and planning can be a great way of really connecting with audiences that perhaps sit alongside your primary target audience.
Niche hashtags – Go into more detail about your post e.g for a clothing brand, what they’re wearing, outfit combinations and type of look.
Community hashtags – Groups of people and accounts may use a specific hashtag that people can use to join them. E.g #heylomography
Special event or seasonal hashtags – Whether a world holiday, seasonal event or a constructed day these can be a great addition to your post #nationalicecreamday definitely gets my vote.
Location hashtags – They can sit perfectly alongside the geotag in your post and will give an extra presence to people searching for your city or tag.
Branded hashtags – A great way to build association with your brand or product Calvin Klein #mycalvins
Campaign hashtags – A decent marketing campaign will have a well researched campaign hashtag that is associated with it and a view to using it over a longer period. These are a great way of measuring engagement and building community of a sustained period.
Trending:
Trending is a term that is part of everyone’s vocabulary when it comes to social media, which best describes topics that have gained popularity quickly over a short period of time. Including them within your posts is a great way to increase brand awareness and reach a potential larger audience, so if they fit with your content, slot them in. Whilst they are effective, they can be tricky to predict, due to their fast changing nature and the way social spaces quickly evolve, ensure that you keep these in mind when planning your next post.
Best practice for your channels:
Instagram: Include up to 30 hashtags on a post and up to 10 on a story, finding the right number and the effectiveness of your hashtags may take some practice and research to help fit your content. Remember: if you have spent time creating that brilliant caption and bolting on 30 hashtags would spoil a post’s aesthetics, just pop them underneath as a first comment.
Facebook: Your limit is up to 30 but there is a common approach that 11-18 will give your post the right reach and boost.
Twitter: A tricky one as hashtags will eat into your 240 character count, but a couple of well researched hashtags will be sure to get more eyes on your posts.
Linkedin: Using up to 5 hashtags is best practice with the social platform taking a dislike to posts with more.
In conclusion, social media is an ever expanding landscape. Staying up to date with latest trends and implementing best practises within your strategy is key to getting the most from any channel.
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