Did you know that it was Twitter that made hashtags so popular? The fact is that, if you run a business, hashtags are an essential part of your social media marketing strategy. They are your path to boosting your recognition on the internet, driving engagement with your brand, and increasing the loyalty of your customer base. Using a hashtag is simple – you place it in front of a word on Twitter, and that word becomes searchable. Twitter categorizes hashtags with the means to create a stream that you can easily view. However, while using hashtags is easy, properly using them is a deeper story.
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Be simple and consistent
It is important that your tags are simple and to the point. If you are tweeting about your latest blog post, which discusses the way your company uses particular applications, try not to create a long and complex hashtag. There is a large difference between #apps and #SmallBiz in comparison to #SmallBusinessAppsAndTools. Such a long hashtag isn’t search-friendly, and there’s little chance that someone is actually using it, so it will be of no use to you.
It’s also important that you don’t overuse hashtags. People sometimes attempt to cover a lot of bases with as many hashtags as they can. You can be thorough enough if you carefully choose a couple of hashtags for your tweet. Using nine hashtags looks desperate, and your followers won’t like it.
Interest hashtags
Interest hashtags are generic hashtags related to a particular topic. They are a great way to expand your reach beyond your current follower base. The fact is that people search hashtags for content. You can even find tools that automatically retweet tweets with a particular hashtag. Anything that spreads your message to more people is a good thing. When choosing your hashtags, you need to be a bit strategic. You need to find a hashtag that has been used often but not abused.
Create your own hashtag
There is a variety of reasons why brands of all sizes create their own hashtags. A hashtag is a perfect solution for creating buzz around your marketing campaign. Think of a clever hashtag to promote your brand, and you’ll see a great increase in the number of tweets about it. Another good tactic is to launch a contest via Twitter. Just ask people to tweet a particular hashtag when they submit their own ideas, photos, or whatever the contest is about. Afterward, you’ll easily find all the submissions in a single place.
If you want to create a discussion about your hashtags, you should make use of opportunities such as events. Make sure that your event has a unique hashtag sometime before its date, and you’ll find people discussing it before it’s even begun. During the event, ask your participants to tweet by using that hashtag. That way, both people who are there and who are following it via the internet can follow what’s going on with the event and engage in discussion.
There are many creative solutions out there. You can also use hashtags for Twitter chats – have an expert from your industry answer tweeted questions from your followers.
Hashtags and SEO
The thing about hashtags is that their use is even greater than finding the newest trending topics. According to experts at GWM, hashtags can be valuable to your SEO efforts. If you use them properly, they can bring steady referral traffic to your website. Google has even implemented hashtags into search results. If you search for a hashtag on Google, you will get more than a list of search results – you will be presented with a live feed of Google+ posts that contain that hashtag, as well as links to other social media feeds which, of course, includes Twitter.
This basically means that if you properly implement hashtags into your social media posts, you will have an opportunity to place your content in Google search results. Properly used hashtags are a great way for people to search and learn about your business.
In Summation
As you can see from this article, hashtags are, in fact, a powerful way to gain exposure, extend your reach, and create connections on Twitter. If you are creative and clever about how you implement proper hashtags into your tweets, it will significantly affect your Twitter marketing efforts. So sit down and brainstorm until you’ve come up with your own unique hashtag, or jump on the bandwagon of a trending hashtag for added exposure.
