Relevant Hashtags Maximize Exposure of Your Content-Find Out How?
Identifying the right hashtags is complex when it comes to social engagement and monitoring. It allows
us to search conversations where our target customers mostly hang out. When you want to reach a large
audience by launching a visual social campaign, then you can use hashtags. It seems like a pound symbol
(#), but is a powerful way to improve your reach to your target audience across different social media
platforms. It took some time for the social media giant Facebook to give in to the hashtag in June 2013,
but now this little symbol has connected conversations on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram,
Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube, and Google+.
Here is the figure displaying the name of the websites that allows the use of hashtags for improving
conversations with the target audiences:
The caption represented using the hashtag might contain any number of descriptive words, but words with
hashtags specifically refer to the overall theme of the post. For example, if you want to share your picture
of riding a bicycle in CP, New Delhi, you can share this picture using the hashtag and adding a little
description like this:
#Me on my #bicycle in #CP, New Delhi
Using hashtags in front of words for explaining the picture helps in drawing the attention of the audiences
towards you and your bicycle.
Important Tactics for Using Hashtags Efficiently in Social Media Content
Using hashtags efficiently in social media content is a bit confusing for the social media marketers, unless
they know the important strategies required for using these little symbols successfully. As an important
part of social media sites and other vital content marketing platforms, hashtags offer a vital link between
digital marketing and communication. Therefore, if you are aware of the strategies required for
successfully using hashtags in your social media content, you can establish long term relationships with
your target audience, which eventually brings remarkable outcomes to you.
The important strategies for a successful social media content campaigns are:
1) Categorize Your Brand’s Messages Using Hashtags
Hashtags have launched a new way of defining and categorizing topics of conversation over social media
sites so that the audience can track down the posts related to an event or a group they were interested in.
Hence, they are ideal for classifying the content, whether the posts are related to an imminent conference
of your business or the products or services offered by your company.
When you upload the social media content, you can use the hashtags for describing its purpose and for
adding value to what it is going to offer to the audience. Delineating posts using the hashtags help in
promoting your business brand content.
Here is an example of Dairy Queen, which has labeled its Tumblr page posts using tags like
#DairyQueens and #LoveMyDQ and it has also used the hashtags with its menu item flavors such as
#chocolate, #Pumpkinpie, and #Cake for defining its branding pictures, animated graphics, videos in a
better way. It will help its consumers find their social media content easily.
2) Expand Your Posts’ Reach
Hashtag not only helps in categorizing and describing your social media content, but it also helps in
expanding the reach of your brand on a wider spectrum. By employing popular hashtags, which are
commonly searched by the audience, you will significantly improve the visibility and sharing of your
content.
Here is an example of Burt’s Bee, which has successfully attracted the attention of its audience to its
latest #6SecondClassics branded videos by tweeting the clips with specific hashtags related to this
campaign.
The popular hashtag used by this brand is #classic, which has helped Burt’s bee in expanding their reach
among their audience.
Another example is Ford Fiesta, which has implemented the same strategy on Instagram. It has
successfully complemented #FiestaMovement tag used for its cross country pictures of Ford Fiesta with
famous hashtags like #Florida, #travel, and #malibu.
3) Begin a Topic Trend with Hashtags
While most of the popular hashtags used by you in your social media content help in increasing its
visibility among the audience, they can also give you an opportunity to display your brand’s creativity.
You can use the popular hashtags for defining your brand’s pictures over social media sites. One such
example is Ben & Jerry, who have wisely adopted the “SharkWeek” hashtags of Discovery Channel in an
attempt to capitalize the attention of the audience created by this weeklong TV program. Famous
hashtags such as #SharkAfterDar, #Megalodon, and # SharkWeek were used for attracting the attention
towards the shark themed posts of Ben & Jerry.
You can see that one of its branded picture feature a bucket full of Phish Food ice cream next to a fishing
pole.
You can also invent the hashtags to promote your brand in a conventional way as this strategy has been
successful for brands like MTV, which has modified the tag, #FollowMeMTV as #FollowMeFriday. It is
a Twitter custom feature that allows other users to follow on the site.
4) Use the Hashtags Sparingly and Wisely
It might sound counterintuitive, but it is important to use the hashtags sparingly and wisely to ensure good
conversation settlement with your target audience. If you use too many hashtags in a single social media
content post, your message will read like spam, which might deviate the social media content readers.
There are different theories available over the internet related to the use of hashtags in a post, but it is
considered safe to use one to three hashtags in a single post.
5) Choose Simple Hashtags
While choosing a hashtag for your social media content, it is important to ensure that your hashtags are
easy to remember. Hashtags should be short and easy to spell or pronounce. It must exhibit the brief idea
about the key topic of conversation.
While choosing your hashtag, you must consider your objectives, which is having your target audience
come together for the conversation and also to ensure that it is easy to understand and remember.
Dancing with the Stars, is a perfect example, as it has used a short and simple hashtag, #DWTS for
organizing people’s conversations about their show and engage with their consumers.
When you employ hashtags in your social media strategy, the solution is to ensure you are utilizing the
right hashtags at the right place to make sure you are reaching your target audience in an optimistic way.
If you will follow these five steps wisely while executing hashtag strategy in your social media content,
you’ll be able to select a hashtag that is not only outstanding and unique, but will eventually help in
keeping your audience intact during the conversations.
Keep in mind that it is acceptable to use universal hashtags such as #marketing or #webinars, but it is
difficult to make those successful when demanding to have an exceptional conversation. Use various
hashtags if the topic is right, but do not include extra hashtags.
Using hashtags could be fruitless for the brands if done inaccurately. So, how your brand can utilize the
power of hashtags depends on how effectively you have created hashtags while adhering with the five key
social media content strategy discussed above. There are continuously increasing number of brands
realizing the real value of using hashtags but getting creative while choosing hashtags for your brand will
surely yield better results.