No matter which social media platform your business utilizes, you need to know the power of hashtags. These social media titans came to popularity alongside the platforms themselves, making them a relatively new development. Hashtags go beyond your typical #throwbackthursday tag on Instagram or #photooftheday on Twitter. They are actually a potent tool. You can attract your ideal customers, increase brand awareness, and obtain social media growth with the right hashtags.  Let’s examine the benefits of using hashtags in your digital marketing strategy, five ways to find the best hashtags for your company, and some tips for using hashtags on various social media platforms. 

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or phrase prefaced by a pound sign. They contain no spaces, so they will look something like this: #hashtag.  On social media, hashtags let both users and the algorithm know that the piece of content is connected with a specific topic or belongs in a particular category. They can be used on any social network, like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.  They come in handy when you want to find content in your niche or make it easy for your target audience to access your brand. Of course, there are several different types of hashtags, including 

• Industry hashtags: These high-competition hashtags are widely used. They may increase the visibility of your post, but you’ll be competing with many others in your market for that space. 
• Location hashtags: If you want more people in your local area to find your content quickly, you can use location hashtags to reach audience members in your general vicinity. 
• Niche hashtags: These add specificity to what you do. Although less popular than common industry hashtags, they can capture the attention of people looking for more specific search terms. 
• Trending hashtags: Use these popular hashtags, typically representing trending topics, to connect your post to a popular trend and instantly make your posts more visible to a broader audience. 
• Branded hashtags: These are great for promoting a product or attracting new followers. 

You don’t have to be an influencer to utilize this social media strategy. Let’s look at why your business needs to add hashtags to its social media posts to stand out from the competition. 

Why use hashtags?

Hashtags connect social media content to specific categories, events, and themes. They also help people add their voice to essential conversations.  Without hashtags, you may find it challenging to make your company visible on social media and struggle to expand your reach.  Here’s why you need to incorporate hashtags into your social media marketing plan. 

Build brand awareness with branded hashtags

You can effectively promote your company and increase your conversion rate by creating a unique, branded hashtag.  If you make one with universal appeal, you may see your brand awareness skyrocket as it becomes a trending hashtag. 

Increase engagement with your followers

Having large amounts of followers is great, but if your social media engagement rate is low, other areas of your business could take a hit.  Incorporating relevant hashtags into your social media posts is a great way to drive engagement because it allows you to lend your voice to a conversion. Your perspective becomes more obvious to your target audience.  Using hashtags allows your followers to engage with your brand through shares, retweeting, and likes. 

Add context to social media posts

Some social networks limit the amount of space you have to write a caption, like Twitter. For others, like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, lengthy captions aren’t an effective way to communicate with your followers.  You can use a hashtag to contextualize what you’re talking about without being repetitive or losing out on valuable characters. You can also use multiple hashtags to add layers of meaning and clarity to your post, making it easy for followers to connect with your messaging. 

Help get your content found

Users can follow hashtags just like they can search for other users on LinkedIn and Instagram. Inserting some popular hashtags is a great way to help new audiences discover your brand.  You can also do some hashtag research to see what users are typing into the search bar and use those keywords in your posts. This will support your company’s SEO strategy and make your posts more easily found. 

5 ways to find the best hashtags for your social media marketing strategy

From tweets to Instagram posts and everything in between, hashtags are an essential tool for getting your content seen by the right people.  But it’s not enough to just use a random list of hashtags at the end of your posts. You need to have the right hashtags attached to relevant content to really get ahead.  Let’s look at five ways to enhance your hashtag strategy to build brand awareness and increase conversions. 

1. Use Hashtagify.me

Hashtagify.me is a tool that works to help you find the ideal Instagram hashtags and Twitter hashtags for your brand and unique content.  It allows you to search for any relevant hashtag and instantly see how popular it is. When you type a specific hashtag into the search bar, you’ll see metrics that give you critical insights into how it performs. This will help inform your hashtag strategy and guide you toward the right ones. 

2. Use RiteTag to find hashtag trends

While you could look at any social network’s homepage to see which hashtags are trending, it’s much more difficult to see ones specific to your industry.  RiteTag lets you enter your social media caption, as well as the photo you’ll pair it with. It then generates all the trending hashtags based on your content. You can use these hashtag suggestions to increase engagement in your posts.   While these suggested hashtags will get your post seen immediately, the tool will also offer hashtag ideas to get your post seen over an extended period of time as well. 

3. Find related hashtags

Industry hashtags tend to have a lot of competition, so it’s better to use ones that are connected to your niche but overlooked.  Do some hashtag research to uncover hashtags related to currently trending ones. This will help increase the likelihood that your post captures the right people’s attention and allows it to shine without being crowded out by the competition. 

4. Use a social listening tool

Utilizing a social media listening tool, like Metigy, allows your brand to use search engine streams to uncover which hashtags are ideal for each social network your brand has a presence on in real-time.   This makes it easy to see which hashtags are popular and most effective for boosting brand awareness. 

5. Analyze how different hashtags performed in past posts

Keep an eye on key metrics that tell you which hashtags you’ve used in the past and how well they performed across various social media platforms.  This is also helpful to identify hashtags you’ve used in posts that went viral so you can include them in future posts as well. You can do this through various analytics tools that track engagement, impressions, and other critical metrics related to your social media posts. 

Tips to use hashtags on different platforms

While hashtags are universal across many social media platforms, you need to take a unique approach to ensure you get the most out of your hashtag use. 

Social Network	Ideal Number Of Hashtags	Essential Tips
Instagram	5-10	Post your hashtags as the post’s first comment to avoid distracting audiences from your Instagram captions. Don’t add hashtags in the middle of your caption to prevent confusion. Stick with 1-2 hashtags in your Instagram Stories.
Twitter	1-2	Do research before creating a new hashtag to ensure it’s not already in use. Minimize the length of your hashtag to avoid using up your 280-character limit.
Facebook	1-3	Because some users keep their Facebook profiles private, it’s challenging to track your hashtags. Use the URL facebook.com/hashtag, followed by what hashtag you’re researching to track which public profiles are using them. Place them at the end of posts or in the comments section to streamline your content.
LinkedIn	1-2	Since this platform is considered professional, stick with professional hashtags and industry hashtags. Do some hashtag research to avoid hijacking someone else’s tag.
Pinterest	2-5	Pinterest is a lot like a search engine, so use hashtags that contain relevant keywords to keep them searchable and specific. Don’t use more than twenty hashtags in your Pin description to avoid issues.

Use hashtags to shine on social media

No matter what your social media expertise level is, hashtags are a surefire way to increase engagement and attract new audiences to your brand. They are an essential component of any social media marketing strategy. To ensure you’re taking the most innovative approach to your social network, partner with Metigy for access to AI-powered insights that take the guesswork out of social media marketing.