Home Tech & Gear How to Use Hashtags: A Guide for Every Social Media Network

How to Use Hashtags: A Guide for Every Social Media Network

How to Use Hashtags: A Guide for Every Social Network
Photo by Tracy Le Blanc: https://www.pexels.com

Ever since the inadvertent introduction of hashtags in 2007, a post without them on social media seems bland. Hashtags are incredibly trendy and versatile. They allow you to carry out your personal or your brand’s message in an extraordinary manner and, in addition to that, bring more traffic your way.

Not stopping at traffic, hashtags boost social media engagement, and posting without them, seems like a missed opportunity. The hashtag feature can be hard to understand, but once you master it, you can rest assured that the results will be impressive.

To understand how hashtags work, read below as we talk about hashtags on various social media platforms.

How do hashtags work?

Before our in-depth tips on using hashtags on the most popular social media channels, let’s look at how they work. Hashtags bring people together around a certain topic. When a post includes a hashtag relevant to the user’s searches, the post is easily discoverable. 

Regardless of whether you are a content creator or a business owner to boost sales through social media, the proper utilization of hashtags can seriously benefit you. Successful usage will depend on the hashtags’ relevance, freshness, and trend status. A successful hashtag marketing campaign will include a mix of popular and unique hashtags. 

For your hashtag success rates to soar, avoid spaces, punctuations, and special characters. 

Instagram hashtags

To start our list, we have the hashtag playground, Instagram. It’s clear to us that Instagram users are very fond of hashtags, as an average Instagram post contains at least ten hashtags. The platform is very liberal regarding hashtag usage as it offers the ability to add up to 30 hashtags per post. 

However, as amazing as it sounds, 30 hashtags are overwhelming, so avoid using as many. Three to five appropriate hashtags are more than sufficient to land you on the Instagram Explore page.

If you find yourself wondering how to choose hashtags for Instagram, we have that covered. For personal use, you can opt for daily or personal hashtags like #selfie, #healthy, #weekend, etc.

On the other hand, for business use, you can use various online tools that will help you generate the best Instagram hashtag by inputting keywords or employing creativity and using wordplay to incorporate your brand’s message in the hashtags. Some businesses that have perfected the hashtag marketing strategy use branded hashtags to build awareness for their brand. 

Facebook hashtags

Before you post, make sure that your privacy settings are set to public. Otherwise, other users won’t be able to see your hashtags and posts. Facebook hashtags aren’t that common among private users, but it’s a complete game-changer for businesses. 

Industry-specific hashtags are the best option on Facebook. Still, if you are already using hashtags on Instagram and Twitter regularly, you can incorporate those hashtags to increase your cross-platform promotion and recognition. 

Try to stick to one to two hashtags per Facebook post, and don’t use hashtags every chance you get.

Twitter hashtags

The birthplace of the hashtag is very conservative when it comes to characters, and that’s why we advise against the liberal use of hashtags on this platform. Try to use trending hashtags and stick to one or two posts to make your post discoverable.

For businesses that want to promote their new line of products, the best way to utilize the power of hashtags is to start a hashtag campaign with your brand as a keyword. Because of the character limitation on Twitter, the hashtag should be catchy and represent the value of your brand.

TikTok

TikTok social Media
Image by Solen Feyissa from Pixabay

TikTok hashtags behave identically to the ones on Instagram. They allow you to amplify your reach by using trendy hashtags that will spark up the conversation among followers. To find the perfect TikTok hashtags, you can glance at what the competitors are doing or use a hashtag finder tool.

Keep your hashtags in the tone of your brand’s message and easily memorable. Having hashtags that become part of the daily life of your followers will boost your reach significantly. To accomplish this, you can study your follower’s behavior and what kind of content they post and what kind of hashtags they respond to the most.

Measure the success of your hashtags

Successful usage of hashtags will bring in a lot of new followers. To see whether you are on the path to success, use analytic tools to see your hashtag engagement rates. Some of these apps have in-built tools that will help you gather the right data, and for some, you might have to use third-party analytic tools.

Final thoughts

Hashtags are crucial to a successful social media presence. Proper usage of hashtags can only yield benefits for you and your brand’s reach. Take a look at our article and bolster your social media knowledge.

Featured Photo by Tracy Le Blanc: https://www.pexels.com