Hashtags are important to small business owners – understanding how hashtags work and why they should be included as part of our social media strategy is helpful. On all the major social media platforms, a # symbol turns a keyword or phrase into a search link. It’s a convenient way to organize your storytelling content, make it easily found, and even adds personality to your brand. A website or URL only brings you to to a static website, but a # hashtag allows people to talk about you in their every day conversation on social media. Using smart hashtags will help you connect with your audience and drive business.
First here’s the basics rules of what is and isn’t allowed in hashtagging:
Allowed:
- Numbers
- Capitalization to differentiate between words
- 1 to 3 hashtags per post
- Inventing your own hashtags
- May appear in the beginning, middle, or end of your post
Not Allowed:
- Spaces. If you’re using more than one word, you must group them together or risk breaking the link
- Punctuation marks
- Special characters
- Don’t confuse @ with #. @ speaks to someone directly, a # does not
- Spamming
Here are some tips on using hashtags for your business:
- Create your own hashtag for your marketing campaign. Simply ask people to tweet that specific hashtag when talking about you or submitting photos. Invite them to ask questions via the # tag to create a conversation with your followers
- Choose hashtags wisely. They are helpful in discovery (and that’s the point of using them), so only use relevant ones you could see your audience using
- Show off your brand’s personality and use hashtags for entertainment or humor purposes
- See what hashtags are trending and if they are relevant to your business, follow the trend and join the conversation
- Create a contest with prizes, so hopeful winners will use your # tag to enter
– Jordan Louis