Everything You Need to Know About Hashtag Marketing

Hashtags play an important role on different social media platforms. Finding and using the right hashtag to increase the organic reach of your brand is a priority. Hashtag marketing is no longer as simple as adding a hashtag to a targeted keyword but also keeping in view the relevant usage.

Today, brands must capitalize on emerging trends as well as leveraging popular hashtags among communities. With doing this, it can help brands to find topical content and plan an effective hashtag marketing strategy.

What is a Hashtag?

If you are a keen social media user, you would be queer of the word hashtag. In simple words, it is using a (#) pound or hash symbol before a keyword or phrase makes a hashtag. For example, #justdoit, #digitalmarketing etc. The first-ever hashtag (#barcamp) used on Twitter was on August 23, 2007’ by Chris Messina.

Hashtag use helps users to find relevant content under the hashtag categorization, users could easily use specific hashtags to increase the reach and impressions of their posts. This made hashtags an effective hashtag marketing tool to increase your brand’s social media visibility.

Hashtags Marketing Tactics

• Use popular hashtags: 
  Increasing no. of users and the content shared by these users on social media, brands facing difficulties in increasing the reach of their content by simply using a hashtag. A hashtag is the most vigorous role to increase the reach of your content. To find popular and relevant hashtags, you can use hashtag analytics tools. Leveraging the right hashtags can boost audience engagement.
• Leverage targeted hashtags to reach out to the right audience:
   Hashtag marketing helps small businesses to generate awareness about their products and services. A Hashtag analytics tool can help you identify and track trending conversations related to your domain. Brands can engage in these conversations to generate awareness for your brand, increase engagement and followers. It can further analyze the engagement metrics and insights to identify the target audience for targeted marketing efforts.
• Optimize the right posting time : 
  Users post over 6000 posts every second on social media. Although, the average lifespan of a post is 15-20 minutes. So, you should post content in the right time frame, otherwise it might get lost in the users’ feeds. Hashtag analytics tools help to identify the time frame when the users are likely active and it provides the desired engagement.
• Monitor hashtag engagement:
  You should measure the impact of your implemented strategies to monitor the engagement gained by a hashtag. Hashtag analytics tools help you monitor the engagement metrics for your hashtag campaigns on social media. Also, a decline in engagement metrics specify that the applied strategies are not effective. You can improvise your hashtag marketing strategies in real-time.
• Get engage with your audience : 
  For years, brands and marketers have used social media to update content and for promotional campaigns. But brands have to understand that it’s no longer a one-way street, you have to engage with your audience as well. Engaging with the audiences helps to build trust among the communities. It also gives an opportunity to listen to users’ opinions and it can ultimately help in product development and analyzing demand.
• Uplift hashtag’s reach through influencers: 
  Social media influencers are individuals that can stagger user decisions in your favor. Hashtag analytics tools can help to identify influencers that have engaging communities to increase engagement and conversion rates of your brand. Collaborate with such influencers to get an opportunity to promote your brand and also prospects for new customers.
• Join trending conversations:
  Engaging in trending conversations related to your industry helps to increase your brand’s reach and awareness. You can leverage such conversations to identify new target consumers of your competitors with unsatisfying user experiences.

You can use a hashtag analytics tool to track such conversations for specific keywords and hashtags. Using the right hashtags in these conversations in ongoing popular conversations can boost your brand on social media.

• Build a community around a branded hashtag: 
  You can create a branded hashtag to represent your brand on social media. You can then focus on building a community for your brand by promoting the branded hashtag. The community can help you create content and influencers that engage with your brand to promote your brand.
• Promote contests and giveaways:
  Social media contests and giveaways are one of the most effective tactics for boosting engagement and gathering followers for your brand. It also presents an opportunity for brands to engage with their target audience. Users on social media channels love to compete in organized competitions to gain discounts and win gifts, products, or merchandise from a brand. In the case of giveaways, it would be wise to organize several small giveaways.
• Leverage user-generated hashtag:
   User generated content are now more popular than ever as they offer authentic and unique content from several users. You can also use positive feedback as testimonials to improve your brand image and build trust. You must leverage user-generated content or hashtags to promote your brand. Encouraging users to share their experiences not only helps in stockpiling content to promote your brand, it also adds valuable user data that can be used for future targeted marketing efforts.

Types of Hashtags

1. Branded hashtags – A branded hashtag is usually created to symbolize the brand. It is often used to promote or tag brands directly in the tweets. These hashtags are simple and easily relatable to the brand . Some brands use their brand name as the hashtag or also add a keyword to their company name to create a branded hashtag. Keeping track of branded hashtags can also help you to find how many users are engaging with your brand.
2. Trending hashtags – Trending hashtags are hashtags that are currently having the highest engagement metrics. You can find trending hashtags by clicking on the ‘What’s happening’ section on Twitter. If you use Twitter on a  smartphone then just open the app-click on the search bar icon, then click on trending hashtags. By the help of these trending hashtags you can generate brand awareness and increase your social media presence.
3. Campaign hashtags –  Just as the name, these are hashtags that are specifically created for an event or a social media campaign. It helps brands to increase awareness and to promote their events. Users also use these hashtags to share their experiences about  the event. This helps the brand to increase their reach and impact of the event along with engagement. Monitoring these hashtags can help you to keep an eye on the strategies.
4. Content hashtags – Content hashtags are primarily keywords that are used to define your content. For example, if you are tweeting about social media marketing, you can use #socialmediamarketing in your tweet. It will categorize your tweet to the social media marketing category and thus increase your engagement. Using the right hashtags can help you to boost your reach and increase your brand’s social media presence.
5. Niche hashtags – Niche hashtags are hashtags that are often used in niche sections or by the niche influencers. Using niche hashtags can help you target users for better engagement and conversion rate. You can also contact niche influencers to connect with your brand.
6. Influencer hashtags – These are hashtags used by influencers to boost their content on social media or any other social media platform. Brands mostly use these hashtags to track known and respected influencers in the industry.

How many hashtags to use?

Twitter –

Tweets with hashtags tend to see significantly more engagement than tweets without, but as usual, there are rules about using hashtags on Twitter. Experts and social media marketers suggested using 1-2 hashtags because tweets with more than 2 hashtags draw 17% less engagement whereas tweets with 1-2 hashtags derive 55% more engagement.

Instagram –

Instagram is another social media platform where hashtags can be used on reels, posts, stories, and bio. The limit of hashtags for reels and posts is 30 and you can add a maximum 10 hashtags on story.

LinkedIn –

Linkedin hasn’t always supported hashtags, but hashtags are back on Linkedin. The platform suggests you to use 5 hashtags otherwise more than 5 hashtag linkedin algorithms mark  it as spam.

Facebook –

Using hashtags on facebook can make your post get more exposure – but you have to use them the right way. Don’t use too many hashtags just go for 1-2 hashtags per post for the best engagement.

Pinterest –

Pinterest has also adopted the use of hashtags but just  as facebook it also doesn’t have much effect on the marketing of posts.

Wrapping up

Using the right hashtags can help you to increase the reach of your brand on social media. After reading this article, now you are aware about the meaning of hashtag, hashtag marketing tactics, uses and types of hashtags. It’s high time to up your hashtag game and fatten your brand to social media horizons. First, choose an effective hashtag monitoring tool to track your hashtag performance metrics in real-time. You cannot create an effective hashtag marketing strategy without that, So start amping your marketing with an effective hashtag tracking tool that can provide real-time performance metrics. Tools such as Trackmyhashtag, brandmention, socialert etc…