Social media is about connecting and communicating with other people, when you look at the name it gives it away in black and white.
To become successful on social media you have to listen and engage with other people to build relationships. This is the very simple, yet real truth that many forget.
Let’s talk about hashtags – those square symbols on your keyboard that look like they were drawn by a child with a ruler.
Anyone over the age of 30 will remember it to mean a number, now it has a completely different meaning. This all changed when a guy called Chris Messina had the idea of using the symbol to group related tweets, and the rest is history.
The power of the #
I have suggested to many clients, the first thing they should focus on to grow their brand, is to start posting more and using hashtags.
One client of mine, a dentist wanted to grow from only a hundred followers, within a few months of posting more content with hashtags they had accumulated thousands of followers, new clients and built a community.
Like all content on social media, the stuff that truly gets results has been created for an audience, to give advice, solve a problem or entertain. The important thing is the creator didn’t focus on me, me, me!
Getting started with hashtags
It’s important to have a fundamental understanding of how hashtags influence culture and society.
Using a hashtag is very straight forward, you enter the hashtag symbol # before a word or term that represents the target subject you wish to share content about.
You do not own the hashtag in any way – meaning anyone can add to this and direct the conversation on a completely different projection.
What started with Twitter, now stretches across multiple social channels, including Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.
Some tools assist by giving hashtag trends, this means you can find out popular hashtags and use them to shape your marketing approach. Twitter hashtag trends are available here:
How do hashtags vary between platforms?
The functionality between platform hashtag use is similar, with hashtags having the same purpose across platforms.
The main difference is related to the purpose of the platform. With Twitter, being so focused on writing the hashtag functions differently in that instead of looking for “iloverugby” you can instead, use “rugby” and that will be enough to find anyone talking about it.
If, however, you were looking for something very specific, and types “super12rugby” you will find anyone tweeting about it.
How to choose hashtags
There are a lot of options for choosing hashtags, Google Trends, Moz, Twitter and Pinterest.
Spending time researching which keywords your audience find interesting pays off and is worth the investment.
Use these hashtags 20 times a day, and you will quickly start to see your reach and influence grow.
The important thing is to put in the work, and eventually, it will pay off!
