Promogate

A hashtag is an excellent way for individuals and brands to make their social posts more visible and increase engagement. By using hashtag cleverly with keywords, a brand can quickly generate leads.  What is a hashtag and how it works  A “hashtag” is a phrase or words with a hash (#) sign in front of it. It is widely used on social media networks to find the content of particular interest searched by users.  Hashtags to social media networks are what keywords to Google. Whenever a user includes a hashtag to their post, it’s able to be indexed by the social network and easily discovered by other users. Hashtags are used to promote business, events, products, and a myriad of other things. Hashtags can double your brand engagement and increase the clickthrough rate.  ( Image source: Twitter Unified Infotech)  However, the phrase or word of your hashtags depends on what is the purpose of your hashtag marketing.  (image source:boostnet.in)  Usually, it is categorized as below:   Branded hashtag- Brand awareness and promotion  Specific hashtag- Particular product promotion or contest  Community hashtag- Industry related to your content  Trending hashtag- News or trending topics people are interested in   Here is the example of community hashtag and specific hashtag. The company targets the community concerned about #healthylifestyle as well as people interested in #fitnessapp.  (image source: Unified Infotech twitter handler)  Number of hashtags recommended for various Social Media Platforms  There is no specific standard for hashtag usage, but the number of hashtag words generally used for social media marketing are:   Twitter: Use only 1-2 hashtags in your tweet  Instagram: Use between 7-10 hashtags in your post  LinkedIn: Use only 3-4 hashtags per post  Facebook: Use only 2 hashtags for facebook post  Youtube: Use around 15 hashtags  Pinterest: There is no limit, but ideally 20 is recommended  Google+: Use 1-3 hashtags for Google+  Tumbler: It allows 30 but only first 20 has more chance to list out   How to use hashtags for your business?  Go through the Guidelines: Before using hashtags on any platform, go through their guidelines for a proper way to use them, and get better results. The hashtags on Instagram works differently than on Twitter or Facebook or any other platform.  Hashtag easy to remember: Create a hashtag phrase that is easy to remember and prone to less typo error.  Longer hashtags: For longer hashtags use capitals so that they are easier to read. Also, try using the most trending hashtags in your industry  Consistency: Keep consistent and unique hashtag throughout all your social sites. Check there is no other hashtag like yours.  Hold a contest: Use a catchy hashtag to encourage people to enter your contest. For example, Lays created a contest with a hashtag #DoUsAFlavor.  Add a hashtag to profile: Add hashtags link into your social media profile. For Instagram, you can add hashtags to stories.  Promote content with hashtag: If there is an article that promotes your business, then do not forget to hashtag that article in your social media post.  Relevant and Unique hashtag: Be selective on using keywords for hashtags; others might be using the same keywords. In that case, try to make your generic hashtags more specific by adding keywords that relate to your company, product, or service. For example, one can write #shoes as #mencasualshoes. There are tools available to research industry-related and popular hashtags like RiteTag, ExportTweet, Trendsmap, and Keyhole.  Hashtag Placement: For example, if you are using YouTube for promotion, then put the most popular tags at the start of description and title to allow YouTube algorithms to locate quickly and categorize your videos.  Tag the Influencer: Influencer plays a significant role in promoting business on social media. Follow them on social media, and take note of the hashtags they’re frequently using. Try to create a hashtag around the same and tag them if possible. You can use Hashtagify.me tool for this purpose.  Promote Actively: Usually, people forget to promote hashtags once they have created. Posting hashtag frequently ( not overdoing) is equally important.  Add hashtags to the previous post: Audit your post at a regular interval, see if you can add hashtags to any previous post you think could make a difference  Hashtags with emojis: Use emojis with hashtags. Companies like Coca-Cola, Dominos, and Samsung have successfully used emojis with hashtags for its brand campaign  Hashtags offline: Do not keep your hashtags limited to online. Make sure your hashtag is seen offline as well, for instance, near the point of sale, on your promotional flyers, print ads, and every receipt.   What NOT to do while using Hashtags   Do not add spaces, special characters or punctuation in a hashtag otherwise, it won’t work  Do not add series of a hashtag in your post or it may look cluttered  Do not use banned hashtags particularly for Instagram  Do not hijack popular hashtags unless you add value to it or start any positive discussion  Do not use the same hashtags repetitively  If you are using a hashtag for Youtube, remember a video having more than 15 hashtags may have no use as it would be ignored. Unless you are on an Instagram which allows 30 hashtags/posts.  Do not use any offensive terms in your hashtags out of aggression to take down your rivals  Do not post any hashtags with profile private; make sure it is Public; otherwise, it would be useless.   Promoting business through social media marketing demands consistency. To achieve marketing goals in the set timeline, both small and large businesses rely on a digital marketing agency.  Here is the list of the top popular digital marketing agency:   SmartSites  Mayple  Lounge Lizard  Moburst  Dot Com Infoway  PageTraffic Inc  WebFX  Cyber Infrastructure Inc  SEOTonic Web Solutions PVT. LTD  WEB CHOICE   Final thought: Hashtag definitely enhances your online presence, but using the right strategy is the key to its success.