When it comes to your company’s social media marketing, hashtags are pretty much an essential part of your content strategy. These useful little links create the perfect method for finding relevant content to share, giving your audience an easy way to find your content, and grouping together like conversations.

If you’ve ever been on Twitter or Instagram, you’ve more than likely seen hashtags in use before. You’ve likely used hashtags on these platforms (and maybe more!) yourself.

The first hashtag ever was used on August 23, 2007, by a Twitter user named Chris Messina as a means to differentiate between groups of topics within tweets.

Twitter has a long history of adopting user recommendations onto their platform. For example, it was early users who referred to posts on Twitter as “Tweets” and who created @replies and retweets. And the platform just recently added the thread feature as an easy way for people to create stories via tweet.

So it wasn’t long until hashtags made their way onto the platform as an official feature. And to say they spread like wildfire would be an understatement.

Hashtags are now commonplace within social media, with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn eventually implementing the searchable link feature as well. Now, hundreds of thousands of posts using hashtags are shared on social media daily.

• They always start with # but they won’t work if you use spaces, punctuation or symbols.
• Make sure your accounts are public. Otherwise the hashtagged content you write won’t be seen by any non-followers.
• Don’t string too many words together. The best hashtags tend to be relatively short and easy to remember.
• Use relevant and specific hashtags. If it is too obscure, it will be hard to find and it won’t likely be used by other social media users.
• Limit the number of hashtags you use. More isn’t always better. It actually looks spammy. There are tricks to get round this though so read on!

Increased engagement with your followers!

Including hashtags in your posts means taking part in a conversation happening on that social media platform. And most importantly, it makes your posts visible in that conversation.

This can lead to greater engagement, boosting your brand’s social media engagement through likes, shares, comments, and new followers.

The number of hashtags you use depends on which platform you’re posting to. A hashtag strategy is not one-size-fits-all when it comes to the various social media networks. In fact, on some platforms, it’s better not to use hashtags in your posts.

Facebook  

1-2 hashtags

Using hashtags on Facebook can help your content gain visibility, attract new community members for your brand and increase your reach overall. The best approach to hashtags on Facebook is to be specific and select 1-2 hashtags that are truly relevant to the content of your post. When Facebook users peruse a hashtag feed rather than their individual newsfeed, they are looking to discover and engage with trending discussions—which is a great time for your brand to be front and centre.

Facebook hashtag tips:

• Because so many users’ profiles are private on Facebook, remember that it’s more challenging for brands to track how users are interacting with your hashtags.
• Monitor your brand’s hashtags and see which public profiles are joining in the conversation by using the URL facebook.com/hashtag/_____. Include the keyword you want to search at the end.

Twitter

1-2 hashtags

Using up to two hashtags within your tweets can actually double your engagement. We’ll talk about different types of hashtags to use (and track) here in a bit, but keep this in mind every time you’re about to tweet. However, using more than two hashtags can actually decrease engagement, so maximize your hashtag use at just one or two.

Twitter Hashtag Tips:

• Technically, you can use as many hashtags as you like in a Tweet, within the 280-character limit. But Twitter recommends using no more than two.
• If you’re creating a new hashtag, do some research first. Make sure it’s not already being used.

Instagram

up to 30 hashtags

Instagram posts allow you to share up to 30 hashtags, some recommend to maximise reach and engagement you use up as many of those 30 as you can. However, more recent research suggest that 11 may be the optimum number.  This is something to experiment with and find out what works for you.

Instagram hashtag tips:

• Consider posting your hashtags as the post’s first comment so followers can focus on the great caption you’ve written.
• With an Instagram Business account, you can access Instagram Insights. Then you can see how many impressions your profile got from hashtags.

Pinterest 

2-5 hashtags

Pinterest made a big announcement in 2018 about how they were bringing hashtag capabilities to its platform. However, this platform is similar to Facebook in that its search feature doesn’t differentiate when searching for hashtags or keywords. When using Pinterest for business, include Pinterest hashtags when writing a Pin description or in a written description when Repinning.

Pinterest hashtag tips:

• Think of Pinterest as a search engine. Use hashtags that are searchable, specific and that contain relevant keywords.
• Don’t use more than 20 hashtags in a Pin description.

LinkedIn 

2-3 hashtags

LinkedIn has also just recently added hashtags to their platform, but unlike Pinterest, they have done so while also creating a searching method that does focus on hashtags. Which means including up to three hashtags in your company’s LinkedIn post actually can help people to find your content better. Although there’s no limit to how many hashtags you can include within your post, we recommend keeping it between two and three

LinkedIn Hashtag Tips:

• LinkedIn is a professional platform. Keep the use of hashtags professional too.
• Follow hashtags on LinkedIn to see recent posts incorporating that hashtag.

Youtube 

2-3 Hashtags

Add a few hashtags in your brand’s YouTube video title or in the video description. Click on the hyperlinked hashtag to see a feed with other videos that also use that same hashtag.

Remember: Don’t use more than 15 hashtags. YouTube will ignore all the hashtags, and maybe even flag your content because of your spammy behaviour.

Youtube Hashtag tips:

• Hashtags are hyperlinked in titles and descriptions, so followers can find other content with the same hashtags by clicking on either.
• If you don’t include hashtags in the title, the first three hashtags in the description will show above your videos title.

To find hashtags that are specific to your brand, your industry and your audience, you’ll have to do a little research.

1. Monitor social media influencers and competitors

Start by doing a competitive analysis on social media. Gather intel about your competitors and any relevant influencers within your brand’s niche.

Make note of which hashtags they use most often and how many hashtags they use in each of their posts. This will help you learn how your competitors are engaging with your shared target audience and which keywords they tend to use.

2. Use a Hashtag Tool

Analisa.io helps you find the best Instagram hashtags for your brand.

With this tool, you can search any hashtag and see how popular it is. For example, if you search the popularity of #springtime, you will get results showing you this hashtag’s overall popularity, its recent popularity, and the trends for the month and week.

3. Know which hashtags are trending

RiteTag lets you type your social media caption into the text bar and upload the photo you’ll pair with your caption.

RiteTag generates trending hashtag suggestions based on your content. You’ll see the best hashtags to get your post seen immediately, as well as hashtags to get your post seen over time. Click “Get Report” for detailed analysis on the hashtags it displays.

4. Get a social media listening tool

A tool like Hootsuite lets your brand use search streams to discover which hashtags are the best for all the social networks it uses. Simply, search streams make it easy to see which hashtags are the most popular and the most effective.

5. Find related hashtags

If you already have a good grasp of which hashtags are working well for your brand, consider using related hashtags. These might be a little more specific than the popular hashtags you’re already using, which could help you connect with a more targeted audience.

On Instagram, the related hashtags show just above the “Top” and “Recent” tabs when in the Explore section of Instagram. On LinkedIn, you can find more hashtag recommendations after clicking on a hashtag. Choose the “Discover more hashtags” buttons after clicking on the ellipsis.

6. Analyze which hashtags were successful on past posts

Keep track of which hashtags you’ve used on past posts. Analyze which posts have been most popular, then see if there’s a trend with the hashtags you’ve used.

If you notice some of your most popular posts always contain a few of the same hashtags, make a point to include those in your future posts as well.

Hashtags are an essential tool for getting your content seen by more people.  Make sure you take time to verify each hashtag and that it is appropriate and do your own research about what rights for your business.