What You Need to Know About #Hashtags
Growing your social media the smart way
If you’ve been around on social media, you’ve seen the turbulent history of the hashtag progress in real-time. From the #hashtag #every #word #in #your #caption phase to the more recent trend of large blocks of them as the first comment, it can be tricky to understand how to use hashtags to actually impact the performance of your socials.
As your resident social media pros, hashtags are just one of the many things our unicorns have been learning about over the years. And thankfully, we’ve come up with a few key practices that have helped us put hashtags to work for our clients—to great success.
So what’s the deal with hashtags? Are they in? Out? Should you always be using them? Never be using them? Is it still cool to drop a ‘#blessed’ on that photo of your lunch? Let’s have a look.
What are Hashtags For?
First off, it’s important to understand the stated purpose of the hashtag. The basic idea is that they’re labels for certain kinds of content and messaging. People can search up certain hashtags to find all posts from all public accounts that use it, making it easier to browse platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok by topic rather than by your feed or For You Page.
When used correctly, hashtags can make a big difference in organically growing your online presence. One study found that hashtag use boosted post engagement by 50% for brands and a whopping 100% for individuals, proving that these little labels are by no means out of style.
In the early days of social media, hashtags were a useful tool for categorizing and finding content based on certain topics. Today, however, many of these tags are saturated, to say the least. The classic tag #ThrowbackThursday, for instance, has a whopping 54.4 million posts, so you’re not likely to stand out no matter how good your post is. So what’s the solution to this overcrowded market of hashtags? Choosing your hashtags with care.
Choosing Hashtags that Work for You
In our busy online world, it can be super tough to cut through the noise. Hashtags are by no means a one-and-done solution to online growth, but they can be a huge help when done correctly. Here are a few key tips for finding hashtags that will help get new eyes on your posts:
Take a Look at the Competition
First and foremost, we always recommend taking a little peek at what some of the other players in your industry are up to. Now, we’re not saying to copy their hashtag bundle and call it a day, but you should pay attention to the hashtags they’re using.
While your competitors likely use some super popular tags that won’t get them much attention on their own, you might be inspired by some of their more specific tags—which can attract a smaller but more dedicated audience (more on that later). If you’re totally lost on how to begin with hashtags for your business, this is the place to start.
2. Pay Attention to Trendy Tags
#TrendAlert! In case you’ve missed it, trends are the main way that anything of interest happens on social media these days. And while you might first think of trending audio, trending dances, or trendy food (TikTok pasta, anyone?), you need to remember that hashtags are subject to the rise and fall of trends as well!
It can be tricky to keep up-to-date with the fast-moving landscape of social media trends, especially if you don’t have hours of time each week to scroll and explore. That’s why it can be a good idea for busy business owners to make use of prepared resources, such as the BNL Trend Report or another service that is more focused on hashtags in particular.
3. Fall Down the Niche Hashtag Rabbithole
Broad strokes hashtags aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but they’re unlikely to earn your brand the attention it deserves. That’s why we recommend that you, just this once, fall down an internet rabbit hole.
Now, we’re not talking about a Wikipedia deep dive here. Instead, try having a look through hashtags and the tags that are used alongside them. This is a great way to find super relevant hashtags with far fewer posts, meaning your high-quality content will easily stand out from the rest. While these hashtags tend to have smaller audiences than, say, #love (which has more than 1.8 billion posts, by the way), this is actually a good thing, as you’ll be attracting people who are already somewhat interested in what you have to offer.
You can easily do this process within an app like Twitter or Instagram. Simply click on a hashtag and keep exploring posts, clicking on hashtags, and exploring until you’ve developed a list of #SmallButMighty tags to put to work for your brand.
4. Pay Attention to Post Performance
When experimenting with hashtags, it’s vital that you step back from time to time and honestly evaluate how your posts are performing. Do posts with certain hashtags get more likes, views, or engagement than others? Are certain hashtag groups attracting customers? Are some tags bringing people that aren’t within your target demographic?
Paying attention to these insights is a vital part of tweaking your hashtag strategy, but it can be tough to do on your own, especially when you have a million other things to worry about. That’s where our next point, working with the experts, comes into play.
5. Work With the Social Media Pros
As a small business owner, you already understand the importance of a strong social media presence for your brand. Quality, consistent posting to a curated following is one of the most powerful ways to achieve growth, but it’s not always easy. And for many business owners, taking the time out of their day to analyze trends and micromanage hashtags is simply too much to ask. That’s where we come in.
If you’re looking for support in creating a relevant, specialized hashtag bundle with true potential, BNL’s Manager of all the Magic, Danica, can help. Book a consult with Danica to get detailed, personalized insights on your business and its position on social media, along with custom recommendations to help grow organically. Plus, you’ll walk away from the consultation with a hand-curated hashtag bundle ready to be mixed and matched on your posts for the foreseeable future.
Get in touch today to learn more about our small business consultation service and book your meeting with Danica!