Harness the Power of #Hashtags with These 6 Tips

Not so long ago, the # (hashtag) symbol didn’t mean much to most people. Today, however, both the term and the little symbol have managed to permeate nearly every aspect of our culture.

Even though most business owners have heard of them, few actually know how to use hashtags effectively for their business. When used strategically, a hashtag can greatly amplify your company’s reach, customer engagement and increase brand awareness.

Here are six tips that will help you harness the power of hashtags for your business:

1.    Use hashtags outside Twitter

The hashtag symbol was brought to social media stardom by Twitter, where it was cleverly used to categorize tweets and link countless conversations together. Other social media platforms followed suit, and today, hashtags can be effectively utilized across a variety of networks, including Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr. When engaging with your audience on social media, know which platforms support hashtags and remember to use them where possible.

2.    Don’t overuse hashtags

While adding a hashtag or two to your post can greatly increase its reach, using more than two, actually decreases it. Try to stick to Twitter’s official recommendation of using no more than two hashtags per tweet.

3.    Associate yourself with a particular hashtag

Create a hashtag that concisely describes the nature of your post or your business area. For instance, a culinary blogger could complete his or her social media posts with #CookingTips, and an HR consultant could use #HumanResources with each of their posts. This way, other people interested in these topics will be much more likely to come across your content on social media.

4.    Keep ‘em short

When creating your own hashtags, make sure to keep them short, easy to remember and self-explanatory. Refrain from using abbreviations. Ideally, anyone seeing your hashtag should be able to immediately understand what it is about and remember it, so that they could easily reproduce it, should they decide to join the conversation later.

5.    Follow the trend

Both Twitter and Facebook allow you to see currently trending topics. Instead of inventing your own hashtags and hoping for them to go viral, it is often much easier to harness the power of the tags that are already trending on social media. Know what people are talking about on social media and use this information to craft your own relevant content.

6.    Do your homework

When looking for an appropriate hashtag, always research your ideas and check the conversations surrounding that term on a particular social media platform. The last thing you want to do is to insert your brand into a conversation that could position it in a negative light and damage its reputation.