If you’ve recently started your business, you know how hard it can be to gain real live Instagram followers. Even if your business looks as if it has the potential to be successful, you’re bound to be looking for ways to increase your following, improve brand awareness, and steal those sales from competitors. While there are many other ways to get your product or service noticed, the use of hashtags is easy, effortless, and completely affordable.
What is a hashtag?
Most of us recognize one when we see it, but may not know or understand its purpose or use. A hashtag is a label that is used on words, phrases, or acronyms on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Hashtags classify specific content, helping to filter your posts so that they can be linked and searched. Clicking a hashtag presents a list of all the other posts featuring the same tag, and this feature permits users to search for relevant content that shares a common topic.
In this case, you want to build a hashtag that will link all of the posts about your brand, your business, or your industry. Using well-designed hashtags means that users who search for a hashtag associated with your company or product will encounter your account page or content that leads them there. The goal is to direct them to shared information so that they can learn about you, your company, your product or service, and, hopefully, determine to engage with you as a new follower.
What is the benefit of hashtags for my startup?
Hashtags are critical for small ecommerce businesses in particular. They attract consumers to your site and grow your company’s online presence. They promote your social media engagement and help new followers come to understand what you are about. The use of hashtags allows you to build relationships with potential followers and encourage their interest in your product or service.
The use of hashtags is free, so it is a tool that many small businesses with limited resources can use for marketing and advertising. Hashtags, while serving the same basic purpose on every social media platform, do vary from network to network. Whether you choose to use Instagram hashtags or Facebook hashtags, it’s important to understand the most efficient and proper way to use them on each social media channel.
How can hashtags work for my business?
Be specific with it. As a business owner, it’s best to try and focus on a target demographic that shares your interest. The more specific you are able to be with your hashtag, the more particular your potential community will be. Develop a hashtag that will get used by coming up with something special about your brand, or finding one or two existing examples that fit your product or service. Remember to skip the tags that are generic and choose something that will help to filter a large audience. The hope is to use a tag that markets itself to your customers by filtering their posts about your store, product, brand, or service and anything that directly relates to your company.
Keep it simple. If a hashtag is too long or too complicated, it is unlikely that potential followers will remember it and use it. The hashtag should be interesting, but people don’t want to type in a long hashtag, especially if they’re using mobile devices. Don’t try too hard or go too offbeat because your hashtag needs to be something people would naturally search for. Hashtags, by their design, are supposed to make content and community easier to find and to engage with, so don’t develop hashtags that are something no one would ever think of using.
Contextualize it. Avoid hashtagging a million different things in one post. It can be overwhelming to see more hashtags than words in a post, so be sure that you use hashtags to enhance your post, not BE the post. Because the goal is to show up in the right searches, hashtag relevant keywords, phrases, or photos that will bring new customers to your business page. Avoid using multiple hashtags unless they are very relevant to your post. Hashtags have several advantages, including the ability to discuss events and interests over social media, so don’t use it solely to promote your product or service. If your business intends to have a giveaway, you can get customers to visit your website by creating a hashtag others find entertaining and interesting for promotion.
What are some ways you’ve seen hashtags used effectively as a consumer? Feel free to add your thoughts here.
