Sunday, January 24, 2016

How to Use Hashtags Effectively for Business Social-media?

Many people have been using Hashtags everywhere without really understanding its basics. Some people use Hashtags to tag their friends, some Hashtag their company names so on and so forth. But Hashtags are not really meant for those purposes. This article explains Hashtags in layman's terms. Read on.


















Hashtag Basics:

To simply put, Hashtag is a powerful way to broadcast your thoughts around the world under a specific topic through social-media.

For those who don't know what Hashtag exactly is: It's a certain keyword we use in social-media preceding with an hash character ('#'), to collectively share a message on any topic. And it will be automatically grouped together under that specific topic across the world in that particular social-media.

For example, please see the sample post below:
"I have doubled my business using social-media. #DigitalMarketingVsTraditionalMarketing". 

Here as you know the #DigitalMarketingVsTraditionalMarketing is a Hashtag. You might have already noticed  that Hashtag never contains spaces between words - in case you are using multiple words. Also special characters like - '&', '*', '+' etc. are not allowed.

There are two ends to Hashtag:

1. Broadcasting end: Above example of posting a piece of content with an Hashtag in any social-media is the broadcasting end. The broadcasters of the Hashtags are - you, me and anyone around the world.

2. Listing end: Here all the Hashtag messages will be listed under each particular Hashtag. To get a real sense of what is it all about, type '#DigitalIndia' in the Facebook search. You will see hundreds of posts on #DigitalIndia in one single thread.

This is the place where real equality happens. Your message or your brand's message will be enlisted along with any powerful person in the world or with any international brand. That means your message could be read along with Barak Obama or with Apple Inc. or with anyone who has Hash-tagged under that topic.

So next-time when you Hashtag, do a little research on what to Hashtag. you might end-up initiating a viral post - a trending post in the social-media world.

Tips to use Hashtags effectively:

1. Don't use more than 1 or 2 relevant Hashtags in each post, or it will reduce the engagement from your target users, there are authentic survey reports on the same.

2. Do not use Hashtag in between the post, it will affect the readability of your post. Add Hashtags right after the post content which will guide your audience to further look into those Hashtag threads.

3. Suggestion: Use only 2 Hashtags per post - let the first Hashtag represent your brand's campaign and another a general Hashtag which is from your industry.

For example, I generally use: #HelpingEthicalBusinessesToThrive and #LeadGeneration. The first hashtag will help to create a conversation under our brand's vision. Other, the general one will help to reach out to new audience who are searching for Lead Generation.

4. Use the same Hashtag in all social-media platforms to create the brand identity.

5. Use pipe symbol (|) in between each Hashtag for better readability and to keep it neat and clean.

Eg: #DigitalIndia | #InternetMarketing

5.5 You can even Hashtag the word Hashtag ;)

Happy hash-tagging!

P.S. Hope this article has been of value to you. In case you have better tips to share about it, please go ahead and type it in the comment section below, by that you will help other readers learn more.

P.P.S Also pass it on to anyone who really needs these tips. Sharing is caring.

P.P.S. Connect with the me here: http://eepurl.com/bNV4lv