How to Use Hashtags On All Major Social Media Platforms

How to Use Hashtags On All Major Social Media Platforms – You must know how to use hashtags to promote your brand on social media. Social media users utilize the hash symbol, formerly known as the pound sign, to make their information discoverable.

The hashtag immediately became a cultural symbol after its debut, with 75 percent of users using it across several social media platforms. Today, brands use hashtags to engage audiences, get new followers, participate in relevant conversations, boost their social influence, fuel social movements, and more.

Read also: How To Use Hashtags Successfully On All Major Social Platforms.

Before we go into specific platforms, it’s essential to understand how to properly use hashtags, as they’re an excellent tool for growing your brand.

How to use hashtags

Hashtags are words or sentences with a hash sign in front of them. They are written without spaces, contain numbers but no symbols or punctuation, and can be placed anywhere in a social media post or comment.

Using hashtags allows the social media network to index your content. This allows anyone — even individuals who aren’t already your followers — to find your material using the hashtags you’ve used. As a result, using the appropriate hashtags can help you reach millions of prospective followers on social media.

While incorporating hashtags into your marketing approach may appear straightforward, they will only make a difference if handled effectively. The following are three main hashtag categories:

Content hashtags

Material hashtags are words or phrases directly relevant to your product, service, or industry and are associated with the content that your content would naturally be associated with. For example, we employ content hashtags relevant to post-click landing pages, such as #landingpages, #postclickoptimization, #CRO, and #PCO, particularly at Instapage. Finally, content hashtags are excellent for exposing your business to potential customers who have never heard of it before.

Trending hashtags

These are popular hashtags that millions of people have used. Make sure your post provides value to the trending discourse when using a trending hashtag. If it doesn’t, it’ll probably go unnoticed.

Brand-specific hashtags

Your posts may be lost if you utilize generic content hashtags or popular trending hashtags. That is why creating unique brand-specific hashtags is a fantastic idea. Branding, promotions, events, sweepstakes, and other marketing activities can all benefit from these.

Keep in mind that the ideal hashtags are determined by the social network, as the rules and best practices differ.

Using hashtags on Instagram

Because Instagram is the ideal platform for many hashtags, using hashtags should be part of your Instagram marketing strategy. It permits a maximum of 30 hashtags per post, and while using all 30 isn’t suggested, you can check to see what works best for your company.

Up to a point, the more hashtags you use on Instagram, the more engagement you’ll get. According to TrackMaven, 9-12 hashtags get the most attention on average. In addition, longer hashtags (between 21 and 24 characters) fare best in terms of length.

See different ways to use hashtags on Instagram include:

  • Including them in your bio area as a link to a hashtag page on the subject
  • Making one-of-a-kind ones for campaigns involving user-generated content
  • Using them in Instagram Stories to increase exposure
  • Use hashtags to find information that is relevant to you and your target audience.
  • Placea hashtag at the end of the caption to keep your content tidy and organized.
  • A popular trend is to use dots or asterisks to distinguish your primary caption from your hashtags to make it look cleaner.
  • Alternatively, leave them out of the caption and put them as a comment instead.
  • Use the search option to see what your audience, rivals, and industry leaders use to locate the finest hashtags. Bonus tip: keep an eye on the number of likes the first photographs get.
  • Furthermore, you should only use hashtags relevant to your business or post, as a result of the 2017 Instagram “shadowban” (in which users’ posts were hidden if they were spammy) and the 2018 algorithm upgrade.
  • As an example, consider the photography industry. These brands should use only photography hashtags or tags about the individual post/image. By copying and pasting the same ones on every post may be reported as spam, lowering the post’s visibility.

Using hashtags on Facebook

Hashtags are allowed on Facebook. However, they aren’t as popular as they are on other social media platforms. As a result, Facebook postings that include hashtags perform worse than those that do not. However, there are some situations where brand-specific hashtags are helpful, such as events or promotions. In these circumstances, using hashtags on Facebook can help you gain greater attention for your posts.

The most important thing to keep in mind is not to overuse them. Because Facebook isn’t as hashtag-friendly as Instagram, using too many could make your brand appear obnoxious or spammy. Therefore, only one, two, or three posts each week are recommended:

For maximum visibility and engagement, The Honest Company used a brand-specific hashtag (#HonestDelivery) as well as a trending hashtag (#MomLifeMonday) in this Facebook post:

Finally, remember to make your Facebook post public so that anyone searching for a hashtag you used can discover it. Only your friends and followers will be able to see.

Hashtags on LinkedIn

Hashtags haven’t always been supported by LinkedIn since, until recently, they were a telltale sign of Twitter cross-posting. However, because LinkedIn is the leading social network for professionals, and because its database has grown so large, they saw the need to categorize better, organize, and filter user material.

LinkedIn hashtags are now utilized in the same way as Instagram hashtags are. Brands may leverage the most popular hashtags to give a better user experience, and users can search for specific hashtags using the search box. The main distinction is that they can only be clicked on the mobile app, not on the desktop.

You can do the following with hashtags on LinkedIn:

Add them to your profile to increase your platform visibility.

For a wider reach, weave them into the body of your LinkedIn Pulse articles or include them as article keywords at the conclusion.

To identify your name with specific hashtags, include them in comments on other people’s posts.

To make your posts searchable, include them in status updates.

Using hashtags on Twitter

Tweets that include hashtags receive more retweets than ones that do not. Despite being the home of the hashtag, Twitter’s ideal number of hashtags per post is merely one, followed by two:

Marketo is on to something when they say they only use 1-2 hashtags per Tweet:

Other common ways to utilize hashtags on Twitter, aside from typical Tweets, are:

Using a single hashtag to categorize all of your material consistently across time

Organizing or participating in a Twitter chat

Participating in Twitter Moments to produce or curate a story

Look up hashtags that are currently trending or those that your competitors are using.

When it comes to Twitter ads, it’s advisable to avoid using hashtags because eliminating them would likely result in more ad hits.

Hashtags on Pinterest

Pinterest hashtags let you find pins regarding specific topics:

Users can discover related Pins by clicking on a hashtag in a Pin description, which will take them to all the Pins that share that hashtag:

Please don’t use more than 20 hashtags per Pin on Pinterest, making sure they’re all relevant, specific, and descriptive.

Finally, unlike other social media networks, Pinterest hashtags can only be used within Pins’ descriptions.

Using hashtags on YouTube

YouTubers may easily find videos about popular themes using hashtags.

Upload your video and include a hashtag in the title or description to add hashtags to it.

These are hyperlinked, and they can be clicked to bring up related videos with that tag, similar to Pinterest.

Read also: How to Use Hashtags in 2021: A Quick and Simple Guide for Every Network

If the title has no hashtags, the first three hashtags in the description will appear below the video and above the title.

Use hashtags sparingly and only when they’re relevant to your post. As you add more tags, they become less relevant. If a video has more than 15, they’ll likely all be ignored, and your video will be removed from your uploads and search results.

Finally, hashtags that contain hate speech, are unrelated to your work, are misleading, sexual, graphic, vulgar, or are intended to harass or humiliate someone are prohibited on YouTube.

Establish your hashtag strategy

There are no definitive solutions when it comes to the finest hashtags for your business. Knowing your audience and understanding what works on each social platform are the foundations of a successful hashtag campaign. Aside from that, it’s a game of learning. Experiment and analyze the outcomes to find out what works and what doesn’t.

The critical thing to remember is that using hashtags can help your brand expand its reach, increase interaction, and gain followers across all social platforms if you put in the time and effort. Create dedicated post-click landing pages to increase engagement. Get an Instapage Enterprise demo now to see how to give 1:1 ad personalization for any audience you have.

 

Facebook Comments Box

Leave a Reply