3 Tips for Using Business Appropriate Hashtags

5
May 2014
Photo credit: @crisstain
Photo credit: @crisstain

In the social media world, hashtags are everywhere.

Hashtags are words or phrases proceeded by a number sign (#), which indentify messages related to a specific topic. A hashtag can appear within a sentence (We love #socialmedia marketing!) or after a sentence (Happy Cinco De Mayo! #holiday).

Currently, hashtags can be used on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Google+ to market your business. Hashtags are powerful tools that can aid brand recognition, expand content reach and help you target your audience.

Here are three strategies for using business appropriate hashtags:

Try Branding

You can easily create brand or campaign specific hashtags for your business. Generate 3-5 that will be easily recognizable as your company. Use your company name, a tagline, product or event that is unique to your brand.  Start including these in messages whenever possible and add them to any marketing collateral you distribute. Social media users will start to recognize and utilize them when talking about your company on their channels. This is a great way to increase brand recognition and expand content reach.

Check Trends

Trending hashtags are a great way to include your messages within a popular topic or event. Engaging with a trending hashtag, can potentially push content out to a massive new audience.

Be careful to only engage with topics that accurately represent your brand and don’t over engage in trending topics. Pushing out content with tags to many trending topics at once can be viewed as spamming and will hurt your brand instead of helping it.

You can currently find trending hashtags on Twitter and Google+, however they can be used on other channels as well.

On Twitter, trending hashtags are found on the lower left side of the feed:

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Google+ shows trending hashtags under the “Explore” area of the dashboard:

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You can also use ever-popular hashtags like #ThrowbackThursday, in a fun way to leverage your business visibility on social media.

Don’t Forget The Basics

General content hashtags should not to be forgotten when sharing on your business channels. Hashtags that are specific to a certain topic (i.e. #realestate), can improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your post. These general content hashtags also group your business within specific industries when used regularly.  Geographic hashtags (i.e. #california) should also be utilized when possible to improve SEO.

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