What Are Hashtags?

Hashtags are no new concept. They have been around for a while and have gained popularity and usage tremendously over the past few years. They were first utilized on IRC’s and became a popular feature on Twitter, as they were beneficial to categorizing chats and posts about specific topics. Hashtags can be any word or group of words immediately following the # sign. They have also been known as metadata tags, but that’s a pretty tech savvy term that isn’t as commonly used. 

Why Use Hashtags? 

Though the concept of what makes a hashtag is pretty simple, the reasons for wanting to utilize them are slightly more complex. Hashtags can serve many different purposes, but they are extremely beneficial for marketing your business, its services or products, promotions and more. 

Engagement

Hashtags can increase the amount of engagement that your audience has with your brand. When your posts and products are discovered by people who searched for items containing keywords in your hashtags, they are more likely to actually interact with the results they find. Correctly labeling your content with relevant hashtags will boost your engagement with potential customers. 

Awareness

Utilizing the power of hashtags can also increase brand awareness. Every brand starts somewhere. You may be amazing at what you do, but if people don’t know who you are, or even that you exist, how will your business grow? In this way, it is essential to use accurate hashtags that relate to the content you are posting, as well as the services and products you provide, so that your brand can be discovered. 

Common Interests

Hashtags can also aid in establishing common interests, either between individuals, consumers and brands, or more! Creating and using hashtags that relate to your message or morals as a business can give potential customers common ground to meet you on, as well as additional reasons to support your company. 

Support

Speaking of support, hashtags are a great way to gain assistance in reaching various goals, as well as showing your support of others. Often, when movements are in the midst of their creation and growth, hashtags relevant to their missions are created. These hashtags can unite a following from all over the world.

Kinds of Hashtags

Now that we have discussed the various purposes that hashtags can serve, let’s go over the kinds of hashtags that you can create in order to get you to your goals. 

Branding

Brand hashtags typically include your brand or company name, product or service name, or your slogan or catchphrase. These hashtags on their own may not be very successful if your brand isn’t already well known, however, when paired with other kinds of hashtags, they can increase brand awareness. 

Trending

Utilizing the constantly-changing trends of the internet can greatly boost your signal as a brand. Is there a trend that relates to what you do? Use that hashtag to draw attention to your products and services. 

Content

These hashtags mostly serve as categories for your content and products to be sorted into. They can include common search terms that will help people find what you offer, and can boost your rankings in relevant search results. 

Event

Another common kind of hashtag is one that relates to current events or holidays. When something big happens in the news, this event often quickly becomes a hashtag. These can overlap slightly with trending hashtags, since many current events become popular topics. 

Finding the Right Hashtags

So, hashtags make sense to you now. You know why you should utilize them, and what kinds of hashtags there are. How do you know which ones you should use, however? Here’s some tips and tricks. 

Observe Influencers

Every niche has their own influencers. These are individuals or businesses whose feeds dominate everyone else’s in the field. Quite often, they have achieved their standings with successful SEO tactics and the knowledge of how to utilize hashtags for their personal gain. It is always a good idea to take a look at what well-known accounts within your field are hashtagging, and considering if any of these tags can be applied to you or your business as well. 

See What’s Trending

As we discussed above, finding trending tags can be a good way to jump on the bandwagon of what’s popular in the right now. If these trends relate to your business, even better. Now you can give your potential audience a reason to pay attention to you. 

Be Specific

Being as specific as possible, especially when it comes to labeling your products or services, or picking a category that relates to what you offer, can help your potential customers find you easier. 

Ultimately, mastering hashtags for your business takes a little bit of research and a little bit of trial and error. In time, you’ll learn how to step up your hashtag game. If you don’t want to worry about doing this work yourself, let us take care of it for you. Our experts would love to help you and your business achieve success! Contact us to see what we can do for you today.