Have you considered Hashtags as part of your content marketing strategy?
- What is a hashtag?
Simply put, it is the pound symbol that is added before a word or a phrase. And it is always in bold and stands out from your post content.
- What is the purpose of a hashtag?
Given the enormous volume of information available on the internet, hashtags help in indexing and categorizing content subject wise. In one word it affords you – Discoverability. It’s a handy grouping tool useful when you research on a particular topic. Sometimes it can help you find your own content too among a sea of posts.
- How to write a hashtag?
No space between the # symbol and the word/phrase that follows, nor can you use punctuation marks or special characters in a hashtag. Capitalization is also not required, except for readability. Keep hashtags simple and short and easy to remember.
- How does a hashtag work?
Content under a particular hashtag shows up in the feed of the person who is following the hashtag or if someone is searching for that particular hashtag. And they can use it to join the conversation on the same hashtag and observe what others are posting.
- Is it okay to repeat hashtags?
Mixing up hashtags relevant to each post is advisable. Since every post will be different it is ideal to mix and use hashtags relevant to what you are talking about. Engagement will stop if you repetitively use the same hashtags.
- How do I select hashtags?
Opt for hashtags that have lesser number of posts rather than more, because that will help your content get discovered. Else your posts will be lost in the millions of posts for hashtags that a high volume of content.
- Should I totally avoid trending hashtags?
Not necessarily. Some of hashtags are evergreen, all-time favourites such as: #love, #selfie and #photofotheday. If it matches your post then jolly well use them, but don’t bank on them for getting discovered as you may already know your posts will be lost in a deluge of posts under the same hashtag.
- What is the strategy for hashtags?
Select a parent hashtag which can be broad based and generic such as #foodie, then you can go granular with #breakfast #recipes #nutrition #proteinrich and #diests and so on. Build a hashtag library and do your research before coming up with it. And, be agile enough to select trending hashtags that are in sync with your brand values (for e.g. holiday, events, festival hashtags). Outside in perspective with a client centric mindset is what you need when you list out hashtags for your posts.
- What is the hashtag best practices?
Don’t force a hashtag when it’s not necessary, nor overuse them. The ideal hashtag method is a handful that clearly defines your post content and supplements it.
- How to use hashtags across social platforms?
It depends on your post content and the platform. Simply copy pasting hashtags across platforms does not work,
- Can I just like that use hashtags?
If you use hashtags without research, then you may land in trouble. So pick and choose and see if the ones you are planning are not used in a different negative context?
Spellcheck hashtags too,
- Does hashtag usage vary according to social platforms?
Yes, it does, owing to several platform algorithms and styles of functioning. See how to use it across the Big 5.
- Twitter: Has character count limit (280), so naturally you can’t overstuff hashtags. However, you can hashtag a few key words within the post to draw attention to your topic and save on word limit.
- Facebook: Not originally associated with hashtags it has evolved over time and embraces it well now. Again, over usage may lead to problems, instead judicious usage of few key hashtags that dovetails well with your post content is the best bet.
- LinkedIn: It’s an esteemed professional network with over 875 million members across 200 countries and regions worldwide., so going overboard will not only be considered spam but also bring down your brand value. Be choosy and select up to 5 hashtags that highlight your posts and aids discoverability quotient.
- Instagram: This is a different ball game, that is open to hashtags and welcomes it with open arms. Actually, it affords you over 30 hashtags per post, and you experiment easily. But again, going by the marketing pundits, no need to use all of them, a dozen maybe that is a healthy mix of trending, branded and niche will work wonders for your post.
- YouTube: Its quite common to ignore hashtags in YouTube after you have taken great effort to shoot and upload your video. And that is a solid waste of time and effort if you miss out on hashtags. Hashtags on YouTube help in SEO, discoverability and also grouping of your own video lists outside of the playlists. It allows up to 15 hashtags, but as we have discussed sufficiently the lesser and more relevant the better. And the top three gets displayed above the video title.
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And yes, you can read more of my blogs on Branding and Content Marketing right here. And would love to talk to you to discuss your content marketing goals for your organization – bhuvanarajaram9@gmail.com or + 91 98415 96366 (Whatsapp also).
