Hashtags: What You Need To Know About Marketing With Hashtags Across Social Media
Hashtags: What You Need To Know About Marketing With Hashtags Across Social Media
Hashtags: What You Need To Know About Marketing With Hashtags Across Social Media
Hashtags first came into the social media spotlight on Twitter, which describes them
as a way to categorize messages. When you include a hashtag in your tweet you are
assigning a specific theme or topic and creating a link, which allows your tweet to be
included with all other tweets including the same hashtag. This means that your tweet
could potentially be seen by hundreds or even millions of other users who are
interested in that topic—pretty powerful stuff. It’s easy to see why hashtags have
become a staple in social media marketing.
Hashtags have become so popular that most social media networks now feature
them. Users like to use hashtags to find topics and follow conversations. Social
media marketers like them because they can extend the reach of brand messages.
Hashtags allow your tweets to be seen by people who don’t even follow you—that’s
pure marketing gold.
So while hashtags can be used on multiple platforms, the use case does differ
slightly on each one. In this ultimate guide, we’ll provide tips for creating your own
hashtags and break down best practices for using them across the social media
landscape so you’re using them to their full potential, and most importantly, look
like a true social media pro.
Twitter
Extend Your Reach
The best use of hashtags is still to extend your reach. Any tweet that includes a hashtag is visible
to people browsing through that hashtag’s stream—even to people who don’t follow you. That’s
pretty powerful.
Participating in a popular conversation is a great way to get your message to new people. Get involved
in topics that are relevant to your brand—add to the conversation (emphasis on add). At this point,
people are pretty well-versed in tweeting and won’t stand for offtopic tweets in a hashtag conversation.
(i.e. Don’t jump on a trending hashtag for the sole purpose of promoting your brand or company.)
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Build Your Brand
Hashtags are also great for branding. You can get creative and give your brand a real personality by creat-
ing a unique hashtag and using it as a regular theme for your tweets. Charmin does a great job with this
angle with #tweetfromtheseat. The brand posts humorous musings supposedly from—but we hope not
for real—the toilet. Charmin uses the hashtag often but not in every tweet, which keeps it fresh and users
engaged. The hashtag has become so popular with Charmin’s followers that it is as identifiable on Twitter
as the brand itself—pretty impressive for bathroom humor.
Increase Engagement
Another great way to establish your brand and increase engagement is to hold regular Twitter chats. A
Twitter chat is where people interested in a certain topic discuss it during a specified time window using
a designated hashtag created by the chat’s host. The Community Manager (@TheCMgr) holds a weekly
Twitter chat for social media and community managers to discuss their jobs and share advice. To
participate, users tag each of their tweets with the assigned hashtag #cmgrchat.
A Twitter chat can revolve around whatever topic you’d like. Perhaps you set aside a certain time every week
to answer direct questions from followers. Or maybe you host a chat that discusses the latest happenings in
your industry like The Community Manager does. Whatever it is pick a short and sweet hashtag, using your
brand name if it’s a branded discussion. A bonus: hashtags are clickable in Twitter profiles. Add your ongoing
Twitter chat hashtag right there in your profile description so users can easily find it and start participating.
LinkedIn
Hashtags no longer work on LinkedIn. So....don’t use them. Existing hashtags still appear hyperlinked,
but if you click on one in the news feed it takes you to a Help Page explaining the withdrawal of
LinkedIn Signal (which also included hashtags).
If you’ve been blasting updates from a social dashboard to all of your accounts at once make sure to not
include hashtags. (Or better yet stop that practice all together)
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Facebook
While the majority of Twitter accounts are public (only 12% of accounts are protected), the opposite is
true on Facebook (only 28% of accounts are completely public). Since most people choose not to share
their updates publicly, the uniting power of hashtags—and the ability to extend a marketer’s reach—is
significantly lower. Since they were introduced on June 12, 2013, some brands have been attempting to
utilize hashtags the same way they do on Twitter and instructing people to make their updates public to
participate in the conversation. The problem with that is people are pretty tied to the way they use
Facebook. They value privacy and it remains to be seen if hashtags will catch on enough to change that.
Vine
Hashtags and Channels
Hashtags are useful on Vine much the same
way they are elsewhere—they add context to a
post. They were heavily promoted at launch by
the Explore section, which highlights the most
popular hashtags in the video app. This was
helpful to users and brands alike in knowing
what hashtags they should include on their
posts to get their videos noticed. The problem
was that every time you wanted to find a new
video type you had to click on a hashtag. This
might be why Vine recently added Channels.
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Each channel has its own theme and a feed of popular videos within that channel. This means that videos
are no longer categorized by just their accompanying hashtag, but their popularity as well. Plus, users can
assign their video to a specific channel. So not only is it important that you pick the right hashtag to get
noticed but you also need to pick the most relevant channel.
Pinterest
Where to Use Them
Hashtags only work in pin descriptions. They are not clickable (or searchable) in profile names,
descriptions, board titles, board descriptions or board titles.
What They Do
Hashtags in Pinterest have the same basic purpose as they do in Twitter—uniting common conversations. But
functionally, they’re a bit different. When you click on a hashtag in Twitter it displays all other tweets including that
hashtag. In Pinterest, clicking on a hashtag not only displays other pins that contain it but also pins that include
the same word or phrase in their description—and it can even result in pins that include the word in its URL.
Take a look at this example from uberVU’s Pinterest page. We pinned a picture we took at 2013’s New
Media Expo and included the event’s hashtag #NMX.
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Make Them Unique
Since search works a bit differently on Pinterest it’s best to create hashtags for your company or brand
that are totally unique—the more specific the better. This will help people find the right content—content
by or about you!
Plus, if you run a contest asking people to pin with your hashtag, having a very specific one will make your
job of searching through the entries that much easier.
Instagram
Monitor and Engage
People are pretty savvy with hashtags so if you’re a large company there’s a good chance a hashtag of
your brand or company name already exists on Instagram. Search for hashtags of your brand name and
make sure to include all possible versions (ex: if you’re Coca-Cola you’d want to check out #CocaCola
and #Coke). See what people are saying about your brand and start engaging in conversations.
If there aren’t any hashtags of your brand or company name then start your own. Tag all relevant posts
with your branded hashtag—product shots, behind-the-scenes at your company—not a dog you passed
on the street that has zero relation to your brand.
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Google+
Relevance Rules
A big difference with hashtags on Google+ compared to other platforms is that while more than one or
two hashtags can seem spammy elsewhere, it works on Google+—in fact, best practice is to include
three. You can add more than three, but the first three affect how your post appears when users browse
hashtags. Make sure the one you deem most important is listed first.
Another difference is that while hashtags are often used ironically (#hashtagproblems) to add a little personality
to tweets, the practice won’t be successful on Google+. Hashtags have to be relevant in order to be effective.
Hashtag Helpers
Here’s where the relevance factor comes into play. Google+ will automatically add hashtags to your posts
if it thinks that they are relevant—and from our experience they’re usually pretty spot on. (But if they’re not
don’t worry, you can delete them. Just hover over the hashtag and you’ll see a X appear to the right.)
These added hashtags display differently from the ones you add yourself. Check out this example from
uberVU’s Google+ page. Our post was about social media fails and we added #FAIL within the text. As
you can see on the top right, our hashtag shows up first and then below it Google+ has added its own
hashtags—#SocialMedia and #Branding.
Navigating through these added hashtags work a bit differently than you might expect. When you click on
one the post you’re viewing flips around to display related posts. When you click on #SocialMedia in the
left example above, it displays the image to the right.
You can then use the navigation arrows on the top to flip through the posts. Below the highlighted
hashtag you’ll see an “also related” field. These are related hashtags that have been used in posts along
with the hashtag you’ve clicked on. Chances are your competitors’ content will show up in this view at
some point so it’s important to focus on creating quality titles and images to attract a user to click on your
post rather than browsing past it.
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
If you click on a hashtag listed within a post (#FAIL in our original example) or you click on the hashtag
in the flipped post (#SocialMedia in the second example) you’re brought to a landing page displaying all
posts with that hashtag. The landing page is organized by “best of” posts and “most recent” and you can
choose how you want to view it. Google+ doesn’t provide much information on how to get your posts to
appear under “best of” but most guess it’s due to engagement. So, be mindful that you’re sharing quality
content so people will want to engage with it. Timing is also important. Research when your audience is
most engaged and post at those times to ensure your content will appear on the top of the “most recent”
page when they’re most likely to be on Google+.
4. Be Unique
Get creative and come up with a hashtag that’s unique—and therefore memorable—for your brand. Avoid
generic phrases or common sayings. Pick something that can be easily associated with your brand and
unlikely to be used in reference to something else.
5. Do Your Research
So you think you’ve come up with a completely unique and original hashtag perfect for your brand? Are
you sure? Take the time to look up the phrase and see if there is any content out there that you do not
want to be associated with. Better safe than sorry.
Post, Monitor, and Measure your hashtag campaigns all in a single dashboard ubervu.com
Optimize your hashtag campaigns with uberVU!
www.ubervu.com
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