Hashtags are an essential part of your social media marketing today. It does not matter what kind of content strategy you are implementing in the social media. You can hashtag them every time. Nevertheless, not using hashtags is one of the most common mistakes that people make in social media marketing. The objective of writing this article is to understand what makes hashtags so important and why you could be losing the game without hashtagging them.
Here is what happens when you hashtag content on social media – all account users in the social media can see it. These are powerful research tools and people can use it to make their search more specific on the social media. The best thing about hashtags is that it reaches your content to people who are not following you on Twitter, Instagram or Google+. It is a powerful research tool that enables search engine optimization experts to see what is trending in the market, especially on the social media platforms.
The most memorable role that hashtags played and which ultimately highlighted their importance is during the 2010 Arab Spring protest when people were frequently using hashtags. Social sites such as Twitter became the center of discussion and a source of the report of these demonstrations when International news agencies were unable to gain any access.
Apart from breaking news, hashtags were also used in some of the most talked about global events like the death of Michael Jackson, engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton and Hurricane Sandy. They are also a common tool that is used in famous entertainment events like sports tournaments, awards ceremony, etc.
Hashtags are also effective tools of promotion that businesses can use to highlight an event and to build up a niche-centric customer base. They are short but pithy phrases that can be used in a particular business promotion in order to attract a large audience base. The best examples of hashtag usage by businesses can be seen in the social media promotions that are done by retailers.
Important Hashtag Social Media Stats that You Cannot Miss Out
Here is something that you need to know when using Twitter to connect your business. Hashtagged tweets get twice the engagement than tweets with no hashtags. Here is a lovely graphical representation shared by Dan Zarrella from Hubspot showing the effect of hashtags on the retweets of a campaign:–
But too many or too little hashtag usage can spoil your Twitter marketing campaign. Here is what you need to keep in mind when using hashtags in your Twitter brand promotion campaign.
Tweets that have one or two hashtags are likely to get 21 percent higher engagement than tweets using three hashtags or more than that.
Too many hashtags can be dangerous and twitter campaigns that use more than two hashtags will actually experience an engagement drop-down by almost 17 percent.
Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags find the highest percent of interactions. Here is a graphical presentation showing the ratio between the average interactions to the number of hashtags used.
The number of hashtags used is seen to be directly proportional to the number of interactions generated.
Want to make the most of the Facebook? Don’t use any hashtags. While hashtags are considered to be powerful tools of social media promotion, this, however, might not be the same in most cases. For example, did you know that a hashtagged Facebook post might not turn out to be as effective compared to the one that is not hashtagged?
In Google+, the posts get automatically hashtagged based on the content type. As a digital marketer, you can also edit these hashtags and edit them accordingly. You can double up your opportunity of increased visibility by including hashtags in the comments of the published posts as well.
Hashtags are now built in Google searches. This is because Google+ is a part of Google’s search engine platform. Hence, in a general hashtag search, one will find the normal search results along with a relevant Google+ side bar.
Some Good Tips on Improving a Hashtagged Marketing Campaign
Hashtags are quite a prevalent practice in digital marketing and promotional activities. Here are some of the effective ways you too can get started, using hashtags in the most effective way possible:–
Accompanying your links with hashtags makes it the most effective and target specific.
There are many hashtags that you will come across. However, you cannot use all of them. Focus only on those hashtags that are trending in the social media platform. Follow your competitors to see of the hashtags are being used the most. Use them for your campaign too.
#2. Using the Right Social Media Channels
It’s not enough to use the right hashtags only. You have got to find out in which channel is the hashtag actually trending. Using the right social media channel for your hashtag marketing will make your social media marketing all the more effective.
Using hashtags for every word might turn out to be pretty tempting. However, make sure you avoid doing it. The reason appears to be quite clear, now that you have come all the way down to read this point. There are methods of using hashtags. In Instagram, you can use up to 11+ hashtags and the engagement will be quite effective, but, in Twitter, using more than two hashtags can spoil your social media marketing campaign. Besides, adding hashtags to every single word you type can make the entire campaign pretty exhaustive and boring. Don’t you think so?
#4. Look for Creative Marketing Opportunities
Hashtags are very creative marketing tools and you can use them apart from just texts. Try intermixing your various promotional mediums when using hashtags. For example – if you are using a photo or maybe a video then add the hashtags to it.
Make Sure that You Track Your Results in the End
There are several tools that are available and which you can put to use for measuring the performance of your hashtag campaign. This will tell you how the performance of a particular hashtag campaign is turning out to be.
The Success of a Campaign Depends on the Results
And this does not just apply to hashtag campaigns. Nevertheless, apart from the results, letting the voice of the consumer to become the main piece and to encourage them to inspire others is what will end up making your hashtag campaign a chain of successful reactions.
Images: Author’s Own
