How to Use Hashtags Effectively on Social Media?

Summary: Whether you are a marketer, content producer, or business owner, knowing what a hashtag is and its importance is absolutely vital. Hashtags increase the exposure and reach of your works. Therefore, it is quite important to know how to properly include them into your work. Continue reading and learn to use hashtags to reach a broader audience.

Key Takeaways

• Hashtags group together pieces of content that are similar, making it easier for people to find relevant posts on social media sites.
• A hashtag is useful because it makes content more visible and searchable and reaches more people.
• Different social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., use different guidelines for using hashtags.
• Use relevant and good hashtags for instagram to increase brand visibility and reach more people globally.

Learning how to use hashtags in social media is essential for marketing professionals and those entering the field. According to a RadiumOne study, 75% of social media users use hashtags.

Hashtags boost brand awareness and engagement on social media. Hashtags, also known as the pound sign (#), help captive audiences find your content. First popular on Twitter (now X), hashtags are now used on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads as ‘tags’. Many hashtags now serve as search engines for information and questions.

What is a Hashtag?

A hashtag is made up of a pound sign (#) and a string of letters or numbers that link together groups of similar online content. On most social media sites, people put hashtags in the written content, caption, or text of a post. Moreover, adding a hashtag to your post helps people find it by grouping it with similar content.

Significance of a Hashtag

The significance of a hashtag in social media is crucial, as it helps organize and categorize content.

• Hashtags help label and find niche social media content.
• They make all your content searchable.
• They also help social media users find and interact with content about common interests.
• Finally, they help content reach more people and be discovered globally.

How to Use Hashtags for Your Social Media Posts?

These simple, followable hashtag use rules will help you make sure you use hashtags most effectively and maximize the outcomes of your social media marketing initiatives.

1. Keep it Simple

The social media universe abounds with hashtags. Most likely, using a long and difficult-to-spell or pronounce hashtag will not help you. But, a generic, never-used, or confusing hashtag will also not produce the desired outcomes.

Your hashtag should be simple to spell, short, and exact. It should provide your readers with a clear concept of conversational topics.

The secret is determining subjects pertinent to your readership. Therefore, you have to locate the hashtags that fit your business and material, which are already under discussion.

2. Use Popular Hashtags

Trending hashtags are popular hashtags that are currently popular or most talked about at a specific time, often centered on major news topics in industries. Engaging with trending hashtags in content updates can reach a larger audience and increase a brand’s visibility. However, it’s crucial to add value to your posts to avoid being ignored. 

3. Avoid Excessive Hashtags

Social media strategy requires hashtags. They increase brand exposure so you can reach a huge audience with your product. Each social media platform has its hashtag strategy, and crossing it may reduce engagement. 

• Avoid using more than 2 hashtags per tweet due to character count restrictions.
• Use two popular and one custom hashtag on Facebook.
• Keep Instagram hashtags to 9 per post for better engagement.
• Limit LinkedIn hashtags to 5 to avoid spamming by LinkedIn Algorithm.
• Use 2 hashtags on Pinterest for relevant content.
• Use 4-5 hashtags on TikTok for increased reach.

4. Make Sure a Hashtag is Relevant

Check the social media platform to make sure your hashtag isn’t misused. Choose a hashtag that won’t be taken negatively or used by another brand for advertising.

After following hashtag best practices, online interaction, brand awareness, and sales increase, therefore, consider your audience when choosing hashtags.

• Ask others if they use it and what they say. 
• Additionally, tweeting with a negative hashtag may not be the best way to stand out.
• Furthermore, researching and avoiding unknown mistakes is smarter.

5. Be Specific

During special events and Twitter chats, marketers use hashtags to reach their community. Use unique hashtags to engage the audience and get others to join the conversation. You can’t expect retweets with generic hashtags like #marketing or #digitalmarketing.

6. Boost Brand Interaction

Hashtags have the amazing power to link your brand with many well-known and very visible subjects.

Additionally, using the correct hashtags will let you interact with new viewers who find your social media page. Careful use of hashtags helps you increase customer relations and reach targeted consumers. Your followers will interact with you more likely on social media, and they will feel more at ease with your brand.

However, including keywords inside your hashtags will not improve your online profile. Your hashtags should be original and conversational. Enhancing your brand’s social media marketing strategy depends critically on the efficient use of hashtags.

Find Effective Hashtags Through Influencers?

There’s a difference between general hashtags and complicated or unfindable ones. Thus, start by studying hashtags used by influencers in your niche to find effective ones.

If you’re new to a niche, you probably know which influencers are attracting your audience. But how can you find them if you’re focusing on other tasks? 

Influencers are the most respected and considered in a specific market segment. These people include famous bloggers, YouTubers, and celebrities. Use a great database of B2B influencers to create marketing impact, but make sure they’re relevant to what you do.

How to Use Hashtags Across Social Media Platforms?

1. Hashtags on X (Twitter)

Using relevant hashtags on X (formerly Twitter) can boost engagement if done sparingly. One or two hashtags per tweet is fine. Consequently, using two hashtags and asking followers to retweet can increase engagement.

Moreover, Hashtags on X make your post searchable. It can help you find conversations to join. Explore trending hashtags for more platform impact.

2 . Hashtags on Instagram

Good hashtags for Instagram boost reach and engagement. Therefore, to reach the most people, use up to 10 or 11 relevant and popular hashtags for Instagram Stories or Reels.

Specifically, popular, location, niche, content-related, and branded hashtags work well on Instagram. 

Regular Instagram posts can have 30 hashtags. You probably don’t need that many, but knowing that more is okay lets you experiment.

3. Hashtags on Facebook

Facebook posts can benefit from using hashtags to increase organic reach, but they are less popular than other channels. It’s recommended to use only one or two hashtags, as more can appear unprofessional and bother readers. Relevant hashtags can be found by typing a keyword into the search bar. Reposting top-performing posts with relevant hashtags can also attract new followers interested in your product or service.

The common question you may come across is: how to add hashtags to reels after posting on Facebook? Here’s how you can follow the steps to add hashtags to a Facebook Reel after posting:

• Firstly, go to the posted Reel on your Facebook page, 
• Then, click on the three dots in the top right corner, 
• select “Edit Post,” 
• Add your hashtags in the caption field before hitting “Save.”

4. Hashtags on TikTok

TikTokers categorize videos with hashtags. Consequently, your video will appear alongside other relevant videos with these clickable hashtags. Hashtags on TikTok, like other social media platforms, increase reach and help the algorithm choose which users see your content on the ‘For You’ page.

Also, TikTok captions are limited to 4,000 characters, so experiment with hashtags. Mix popular and niche hashtags to maximize reach.

Research Tools for Finding Hashtags

Other research tools are designed for the specific purpose of refining information related to hashtags. Therefore, check out these tools to assist you in finding successful hashtags within your particular niche.

RiteTag: The instant hashtag suggestions that RiteTag provides are available for real-time engagement.

Hashtagify.me: It is a tool that gives you the ability to search for the popularity of hashtags as well as trends with them.

Keyhole: The search function that Keyhole offers is completely free, and it also provides you with real-time data on a variety of different factors.

Copyai: Copyai’s hashtag generator employs artificial intelligence to generate hashtags on your social media posts.

Hashtagforlikes: It is a tool that searches for live statistics in order to assist you in creating campaigns for Instagram and TikTok social media platforms. 

Also Read:

6 necessary KPIs for Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

How To Do Paid Social Ads Competitor Analysis?

Conclusion 

Do you now have an understanding of What is a Hashtag and how you can use it to enhance your social media strategy?
No matter how long you’ve been using social media or if you’re new to it, our SMO services will help you get good at all of them. Specifically, from Instagram and Facebook to YouTube and TikTok, we can help you get more people to interact with you and reach more people.