In today’s digital age, hashtags have become an important catalyst in driving one's online identity and presence. They began life as a humble metadata tag. And have now evolved into a potent tool for categorising and discovering content. This is particularly true in the realms of digital marketing and social media. Cleverly used hashtags can significantly increase the effectiveness of a brand's digital marketing and social media strategies.
For the untrained, hashtags are strings of interconnected words. They are preceded by a hash symbol (#), which help to streamline content. This makes it more easily searchable for both search engines and users.
These tags are designed with no space between the hash symbol and the word or phrase that follows. It's important to note that if you include a space, you render the hashtag ineffective. This will strip the tag of its property to make the word searchable on the platform.
Clicking on an existing hashtag sends the user to a page with posts containing the same tag.
These digital assets contain a unique hyperlink colour which is often blue. They have added a wide range of expressions to worldwide vocabulary. And this is all thanks to their existence on social media platforms.
The Typical Role of Hashtags
Undeniably, hashtags have transformed into an essential mechanism to drive brand awareness, and heightened visibility to products. They showcase services, and an array of content across varied social media platforms. Initially started in Twitter, hashtags have now flourished across diverse social media platforms. These include giants like Facebook and Instagram with the latter performing particularly well.
The Intricacies of Using Hashtags
Before diving headfirst into the world of hashtags there is a step to be taken. You will need to become familiar with guidelines on how to guarantee their effective use.
Case Sensitivity - Hashtags dismiss the distinction between lower, title, and upper cases. These tags are undetermined of case and focus on the words instead. Thus, #Holiday, #holiday, and #HOLIDAY are all as searchable as each other. They have a similar impact, unless the tag denotes a specific brand name or serves a unique purpose.
Length of Hashtags - Shortness is key in designing an impactful hashtag. If your phrases are longer than 3-4 words, they may appear daunting to the users. This may discourage them from using it. Short and snappy hashtags have a higher readability and more easily understood by the reader.
Existing versus Custom Hashtags - While creating new hashtags injects your content with a distinctive identity, using popular or trending hashtags can produce similar benefits.
The Method of Hashtags
The main job of hashtags is to help in segmenting and steering posts. These are based on their content on social media platforms. They enable users to discover aligned content through related hashtags. Different platforms have varying recommendations for hashtags.
Instagram and Twitters usage patterns offer excellent insights into successful hashtag strategies. Several online tools can help in identifying the most effective hashtags for your brand's niche or content. They may suggest more popular or trending hashtags that dovetail with related keywords. This in turn will help to streamline your search engine rankings.
The Gains of Hashtag Adoption
Adopting hashtags serves us with plenty of benefits that will enhance a brand's reach and potential:
Discoverability & Visibility
Strategic use of hashtags can establish your brand's visibility. It may lead to new followers to discover your brand because of this. Coupled with a steady content posting regime, hashtags can increase your brand's reach and follower growth. This will only strength your social media strategy.
Content Ideation
Knowledge of trending hashtags provides your brand with valuable insights into the current market trends. This will then help you to align your content creation strategy accordingly. Using hashtags allows brands to keep a closer eye on competition. Using these they are more able to track partnerships, initiatives, and releases.
Competitive Edge
Hashtags provide detailed insights into the brand alignment relative to search engine rankings. This direct comparison allows brands to gauge their position against their competitors. That then can help or show user behaviour towards your brand or service.
Enhanced Audience Engagement
Hashtags can significantly boost audience engagement. Their ability to filter for targeting specific user bases will increase visibility and in turn engagement. They ease stronger user-brand interaction which leads to higher lead conversion rates. Of course, that then ensures increased brand loyalty.
In summary, hashtags, when used cleverly, provide an undeniable boost to a brand's digital marketing and social media strategies. There are a couple of things to remember. These little symbols, when capitalised upon correctly, will enhance the visibility and success of your content marketing strategy. If you are unsure you may choose to engage with industry professionals. They can help to ensure your website and digital communications strategy create a return on investment.
You can get training to understand the use of Hashtags better or get a professional to identify a series of hashtags for you to implement. These can then be used to enhance your social media marketing.
If you would like to talk to us about workshops or our one-to-one training sessions, please email us or call 0475 471 229. We would love to talk to you!
