Hashtags

Hashtags help by tagging content to help social media users to search and filter it.

For example, if you want to find everything that’s been posted recently on the topic of social media on Twitter, then all you have to do is search for #socialmedia and you will see the results. People use this feature to follow news, sporting events, TV shows, brands, and more. It’s a way of taming the social media firehose so people can find valuable information when they need it.

So how does this help you as an entrepreneur, business, or brand? Here are five benefits:

• Using hashtags correctly makes you appear on-trend and tuned into current events. In other words, hashtags make you look relevant to your social media followers, and relevance is what makes them stick around.

• Hashtags can increase brand prominence and recognition for your campaigns. It’s something Coca-Cola does well, for example with the recent #shareacoke campaign.

• Using hashtags helps your audience to find your content, wherever you happen to post it.

• Using the same hashtags across multiple social media platforms and analyzing engagement gives a holistic picture of your reach.

• Using hashtags in a fun, quirky way can show your brand’s personality.

How to Use Hashtags Effectively

So how can you make hashtags work for you? Here are some tips to help you get the most from hashtag use.

Know what’s trending

If you want to be relevant, you need to use the hashtags that people are searching for. Check out the trending topics on Twitter (in the box on the right of your timeline). Pro tip: If you market your business globally, change the country to see what’s trending in different parts of the world. For cross-platform social media trends, use Social Mention, which will show you the top related hashtags for any search term. Find trending hashtags and use them in your content to improve your reach.

Avoid overuse

It’s worth noting that, except for Instagram (more on that in the next tip), you should limit your hashtag use to three. Too many hashtags can overwhelm your post, especially on Twitter with its 140-character limit.

Go beyond the suggested hashtags 

Google+ automatically suggests hashtags for your posts, but these aren’t always the best ones to use. Instead of automatically accepting the suggestions, use your information on trending topics to add new hashtags. And if you reshare content, consider adding up to three new hashtags to help even more people to find the content.

Use hashtag recycling (Instagram) 

Instagram is a hashtag user’s paradise because you can use pretty much as many hashtags as you want (well, up to 30, anyway). Not only that, but if you DON’T use hashtags, no-one will find your stuff.

Here’s a good Instagram strategy. In addition to the hashtags in your post, add up to five other hashtags in a comment. Later, you can delete those and add five new ones. This hashtag recycling strategy helps increase exposure for your Instagram post over time.

Search and filter

Hashtags are a great content marketing tool. At SEMrush, we look for SEO-related hashtags (such as #SEO, #SERP and others) to find new content in this niche and connect with the people who are sharing it.

Hashtags also work well for internal use, so you can easily filter posts and track their success. Some of those used by our team for this purpose include #semrushblog, #fun, #tipoftheday.

Roll your own hashtag

If you’re starting a campaign, don’t be afraid to use your own hashtag. If you have an idea, the first step is to check that no-one else is using it on Hashtags.org.