Do Hashtags Matter?

'Why should I use hashtags?’ you say? Well, using hashtags is not just another random fad that Gen Z is following! There is a very simple logic behind using them.

Hashtags bring visibility and make your content and eventually your brand, discoverable in today’s extremely competitive market. It also increases your chances of audience engagement.

Now there are some practices to swear by and some to avoid. But let us first understand why hashtags work.

Why Do Hashtags Work?

Hashtags increase your social media presence as they can travel across platforms and can sometimes carry the entire messaging of a marketing plan for a brand!

The hashtag - #barcamp was first used on Twitter to create certain groups of conversations easily accessible on the platform. After noticing the momentum this conversation gained on social media, many brands started exclusively using this tool to market their brands.

Hashtags help you build a brand for your business by engaging with customers and joining in on the conversations that are trending. You can leverage the trending topics and create a brand messaging revolving around some of the most talked-about topics and connect with the target audiences. 

How To Use Hashtags?

Hashtags are now religiously used on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and many other social media platforms. However, their usage on each of them is different.

Twitter hashtags enable people to take part and tap into the ongoing conversation with the same topic and this way people who don’t follow each other are also able to engage. However, using too many and too long hashtags on Twitter doesn’t work since it can harm your social media presence and can confuse the audiences.

On the other hand, Instagram has quite an opposite approach to hashtagging. Hashtags on Instagram give audiences a more organic way to discover brands and products using certain keywords. This mostly happens by engaging with a community. Using more specific hashtags can help you build a bigger audience & you can do this simply by studying the hashtags that your audience is already using and connect your brand messaging with it! More generic hashtags will also bring more engagement to your posts.

Having said this, do you know why hashtags don’t work on Facebook and LinkedIn that well? This is because LinkedIn does not support hashtags. On Facebook, the hashtags don’t work because its users don’t use hashtags when they search for things.

So, make sure that you know a social media platform thoroughly before using such powerful tools to market your product or brand.

Keep This In Mind While Using Hashtags!

It has been seen recently that although the brands are using hashtags for increasing their reach & engagement, they are not able to make a significant impact when it comes to their brand presence. This is because, to get more consumer engagement, the messaging needs to be more creative!

Use better hashtags

We all know that friend who uses the same 30 tags in all their posts. Well, this kind of strategy doesn’t always work when you need to engage your target audience.

As surprising as it may sound, if you create 3 effective hashtags for your post, it is more than enough to deliver the right brand message to your core audience.

Keep changing your tags

Stop using the same hashtags for every post. Use hashtags that are relevant to what you are putting up on your social media account.

A simple way to do this is by looking at other brands in your niche. Paying attention to what they are doing will give you an idea of what you need to do to stand out in the crowd! Incorporate useful and relevant hashtags and put up content that is relatable to your audiences.

So precisely, the quality and efficiency of your hashtags need to be high. This is where you will require tools like convocean.com that will give you a detailed report on what people are discussing, what topics are trending among your target audience, what issues are trending on social media related to your market niche, etc. All this will help you create focused content and effective hashtags that are directed towards your targeted demographic.