I often wondered what the pound symbol (#) was doing at the end of peoples post on Facebook. Then I jumped on Instagram. Admittedly, a few years later than Facebook. I noticed them there as well. Why are people putting the pound symbol in front of words and abbreviations? I later discovered that they are called “Hashtags”. Ok, well, what are they used for? What is the relevance?
I did some research on hashtags and looked at how they are
used by individuals as well as businesses. So, apparently, using hashtags is a
way to reach new people, customers, clients and the like on social media
platforms. Hashtagging links a posts, pics, videos… etc. with that hashtag. So,
if you tag all your content with the same hashtag, a person searching that
hashtag will see all the content posted with that hashtag.
If all the restaurants which serve tacos took pictures of
their tacos and tagged them with #tacotuesday, then a person searching the
hashtag #tacotuesday would see everything posted with that tag. Adding other
tags such as business name and location could help promote the business and locality.
Its all about the right hashtag(s) when using them to find your target
audience.
A few things to keep in mind. Hashtags work on public
profiles. Tags on private profiles are not seen publicly. When I expanded my
Instagram from a private profile to business, it became public.
When posting a hashtag, there are rules. No caps or spaces. Try
not to convert a sentence to a hashtag. This can be very difficult for an
individual to decipher. #comelikemypageoninstagram is long. Hashtags I might
use for my page would include #atep, #gpats, #tets, #vipert, #grmats and so on.
These would be considered branded hashtags. They are unique to my business. I
have a very niche group of customers. Most people wouldn’t even know what any
of those things mean or are related to. My customers and I do, and that’s what
matters to me.
The number of hashtags used on a post is a max of 30. I’m
not sure how anyone could come up with 30 tags for a post, but I’m sure there
is some influencer out there frustrated by that limit. I can only come up with
about 10 at a time. Maybe I’m just not hat creative.
In general, hashtags seem like an effective way to promote
items, events, people, and products. Not to mention an entire company,
regardless of the size. So, go and make your posts. Hashtag the heck out of
them. Look at other, similar hashtags to see what’s gaining traction and
popularity.
#happyhashtagging
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