Why do We Use Hashtags
Time to understand the power of #hashtag.
In case you haven’t noticed, whenever you see posts on social media, you’ll almost always come across this little symbol “#” accompanying certain posts.
Granted, hashtags have become as commonplace as emojis and increasingly become an essential companion for modern social media communication. Marketers and users both track topics, people, or conversations by tagging keywords, phrases, or texts using hashtags.
It’s no surprise that the once nearly forgotten symbol becomes the primary key to success for digital marketers and brands to create and solidify their social media presence, improve reach, and grow a follower base.
Hashtags have become an effective digital marketing strategy.
Understanding the power of hashtag
First introduced in 1988, hashtag was initially used to categorize images, messages and videos. In 2007, the symbol gained more importance in social media when Chris Messina first introduced it on Twitter.
Ever since, hashtags have been used to highlight the ‘trending topics’ on various social media platforms. But, how effective is hashtag?
According to a research by Buddy Media, a single hashtag can increase engagement by 100%. Tweets with hashtags earn twice as much engagement and one study showed that Instagram posts with hashtags saw a 70% increase in likes compared with hashtag-free posts. Additionally, three-quarters of social media users are strapping hashtags onto their posts.
When it comes to social media marketing, hashtags are the key to SEO and visibility of your content. They can be an essential component in building brand awareness across platforms, as they help to spark, search and unite conversations happening across the internet, which will eventually attract new followers to your accounts.
Hashtags and marketing
When used strategically, hashtags can provide a ton of benefits. They can be used to get your content in front of a bigger audience, raise awareness about your brand, target a very specific group of people, boost your SEO, and use hot trends and topics to your advantage.
Here are some hashtag marketing strategies that you can use to engage your audiences.
- Brand hashtags
Think of this as your brand signature. It should be a relevant keywords that are used to market your brand. It could be a company’s name or a tagline.
Brand hashtag is especially good to let your followers to share posts related to your brand and let the social community know about you and what your followers think about you. That way, people will know how to find content associated with your brand easily.
There are two primary benefits:
- It makes the social listening process easier as you can monitor your campaign performance simply by focusing on your branded hashtags.
- It encourages UGC. Every time a user puts one of your branded hashtags inside one of their posts, they are increasing your presence on social media.
KitKat uses a brand hashtag #HaveABreak consistently on all their social sites. Their consumers know their brand hashtag, and in turn using it to engage with the KitKat community.
2. CTA hashtags
This one is pretty straight forward. CTA hashtags are used to encourage social media community to take specific actions related to your brands or campaigns.
Why you should use CTA hashtags:
- It builds a sense of community. Users can communicate and connect with each other by using your hashtags.
- It raises awareness about your social media presence and your campaigns. CTA hashtags initiates engagement, conversations, and actions from your audience while increasing your brand’s visibility.
Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke campaigns harnessed the power of CTA and became a successful marketing initiative. Through the hashtag, the company encouraged social media users to post pictures of themselves sharing the drink with friends and family.
3. Trending hashtags
A trending hashtag is a hashtag topic that has become viral. Constantly changing in real-time, a trending hashtag can last for days or mere minutes.
When you see a trend that relates to your business, engage in it by using the tag. By using a trending tag in your content update, you can potentially get your message seen to a massive audience. You can also use a popular niche hashtag to get your post seen by a like-minded people.
Oreo is known for their real time, trend-catching marketing hashtags. They were one of the first brands to tweet about the trending hashtag #SuperBowl #blackout. They also were on top of the #RoyalBaby and #FashionWeek trends.
Rounding Up
One of the best weapons in your disposal to boost organic reach of your posts, aside from influencer marketing, are hashtags.
Basically, they help social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to categorize your content and get them in front of your target audience.
Nevertheless, hashtags are merely marketing tools and using them improperly is not going to help you accomplish your business or campaign goals.
What can you do to leverage them effectively in your social media marketing campaign?
- Choose the right and focused words. The point of hashtag is simply to organize your content and make it easier to find.
- Don’t overdo it. While hashtags can be an incredibly effective marketing tool, you may do yourself a disservice if you use them too frequently.
- Use location. Hashtag a city or town name to attract local customers and narrow down your audience.
So, how do you implement hashtags on your social media campaigns?
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Viral Access is an AI and data-driven social communication company — we help you tell your story through social media. We pair your brand with relevant micro and nano influencers that help you increase awareness, engagement and conversion. We have the systems and team in place to support large scale communications throughout Asia.
For business inquiries, contact us at: info@viralaccess.asia.
