MARKETING
Best TikTok Hashtags in 2022 [Ultimate Guide]
Creating a TikTok is half the battle — now you need the right people to watch it. But with over 1 billion monthly users on the platform, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd.
Enter your secret weapon — the hashtag. While many marketers approach hashtags as an after-thought, they’re a powerhouse for engagement, visibility, and discoverability. Even if you aren’t running a full-scale hashtag campaign, they should be a part of your overall TikTok strategy.
Here, we’ll explore the benefits of using TikTok hashtags, discuss best practices for using them, and uncover what types of hashtags are most popular on the platform.
What are TikTok hashtags?
Like Instagram and Twitter, TikTok uses hashtags to group content around a particular topic, making it easy for people to find videos that interest them.
The hashtag “formula” includes a hash sign (#), followed by a topic (e.g., crafts, travel, fashion, sports, etc.). The best hashtags tend to be relatively short, concise, and easy to remember.
Brands can use hashtags to build brand awareness, increase social engagement, and drive conversions. To go a step further, they can also sponsor a hashtag — known as a branded hashtag — to encourage TikTokers to create content around it. The most popular branded hashtags have amassed millions of views and thousands of response videos.
Next, let’s dive deeper into the importance of TikTok hashtags — and cover best practices for using them.
Why are TikTok hashtags so important?
Hashtags have the power to expand your reach beyond your current audience. Let’s dive deeper into their benefits:
1. Provide context.
For one, hashtags provide a layer of context for your TikTok videos. For instance, if you upload a video of you playing a video game, you could include the hashtag #gaming. Then, the TikTok algorithm decides who would be most interested in seeing your video on their feed.
2. Discoverability and engagement.
Hashtags categorize videos under certain topics — like #gaming — so users can easily find content they’re interested in. As a result, your content has more chances to be discovered, even if someone doesn’t follow your brand.
With more eyes on your content, you have a higher chance of engagement. After all, users can only “like” and comment on videos that appear in front of them. So, more reach typically translates to higher engagement.
3. Building community.
Hashtags are a great tool for building community. For instance, branded hashtags are an effective way to encourage users to engage with your brand and create videos around a sponsored hashtag.
For example, when Nissan Australia wanted to promote its new sports car, the JUKE, they turned to TikTok. They created a branded hashtag — #improvisewithJUKE — and challenged users to make their own car commercial voiceover, with the winner receiving a feature in a future JUKE commercial.
The results? 129.4 million video views globally and over 34,000 video submissions, leading to a 92% lift in brand awareness for the JUKE.
How to Use Hashtags on TikTok
Hashtags on TikTok work just like they do on Instagram and other social platforms. When you upload a video, you have the option to write a caption — and this is where you want to include your hashtags. While this sounds simple, here are a few best practices to keep in mind:
1. Find the best hashtags for your content.
It’s essential to research hashtags relevant to your brand, your industry, and your audience. One way to do this is by checking out your competition because there’s likely an audience overlap. Observe what hashtags they use and note which ones get the most views and engagement.
You can also find inspiration on the app’s Discover page. Here, you can browse through trending hashtags and sounds. Discover also showcases popular videos that use these hashtags to help you find inspiration.
2. Combine niche hashtags with popular ones.
This might sound counterintuitive, but only targeting popular hashtags can be ineffective. While they have a larger audience, they’re also highly competitive. Instead, it’s better to have a mixture of both niche and popular hashtags.
Niche hashtags have fewer people searching for them, but those who do are highly engaged and interested. For instance, #food is a popular TikTok hashtag with millions of impressions, but #cakedecorating is more niche with a fraction of the audience. By incorporating both, you tap into two different audiences.
3. Stay mindful of the character limit.
TikTok limits captions to 300 characters. While you could squeeze as many hashtags as possible into your caption, a long string of hashtags can confuse your audience — and this does a poor job of explaining your video. Instead, experts suggest 3 to 5 hashtags as the optimal number.
Popular TikTok Hashtags
According to a recent Statista report, TikTok sees the most hashtag views from entertainment content (535 billion views, to be exact). This aligns with another study by HubSpot that reports funny and entertaining content has the highest engagement and ROI than any other content type.
The second most popular category on TikTok is dance with 181 billion hashtag views, followed by pranks, fitness and sports content, home renovations, and beauty and skincare.
To find the most popular hashtags in real-time, visit the Trend Discovery page on TikTok. Here, you will find a comprehensive list of trending hashtags, songs, and creators.
Back to You
Once you create a TikTok video, your work isn’t over. Now you need to position your content in front of your audience. One of the best ways to do this is with hashtags. Start with the tips in this article and always keep an eye out for hashtags that relate to your brand or audience.
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
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