Does your social media marketing agency use hashtags to boost your social engagement?

Hashtag usage might seem pretty simple, and overall, it is. There are some caveats and pointers one can use to maximize the opportunities that hashtags provide. Let’s examine a few of those tips and see how your social media marketing agency can make them work for you on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram:

1) In general less is more when it comes to hashtags, except on Instagram (and there’s also a best practice there of 5-10 per post). Try and keep your hashtags relevant so that when they are searched your content isn’t mixed in with a lot of other information that may be unrelated.

2) On Twitter and Facebook going hashtag happy is not going to win friends and influence people. Ever see this on Twitter or Facebook?

#ILoveHashTags #HashtagsRock #MoreHashTags #More #Is #Better #Surely #I #Should #Use #More etc. etc.

It almost makes your eyes burn to look at that many hashtags. And you know the only reason people do it is to get attention, but that isn’t the way to get attention on social media. You want to join relevant conversations and use hashtags that are related to what you are talking about. It’s a good rule of thumb to search hashtags on social networks and see if someone else has used them, and then determine if your content fits in with that hashtag. If it doesn’t use another and keep your usage down to one or two per post. Do some research and know that too many hashtags will hurt engagement. Your social media marketing agency can lead the way on how to discover the best hashtags and balance their usage on your social accounts.

3) Have you noticed that it’s fairly trendy on Twitter to not only include someone’s @name to tag them, but to make a statement? This practice is somewhat related to hashtag use and can get very creative. It is sometimes used with place names, like this:

This car was purchased @CarDealerName

Eating a burger @RestaurantName

4) Creating branded hashtags is a great way to build visibility for your business. The trick is to not have so many different ones that they are hard to track. Stick to one or just a few that you use as your main branded tags, such as this one for the famous horse farm, WinStar, which uses #DreamBig. It is relevant because it is the business tag line they use in all of their advertising:

5) Remember, the goal is to increase engagement. Just as you would plan your content with an editorial calendar, plan your hashtag usage. Plan ahead and select hashtags that will help your content be found by your intended audience.

Bonus tip: Do you have a special event coming up? Plan your hashtag(s) ahead of time and message your members or attendees that this is the hashtag you want them to use when live tweeting or posting at the event. Then others who cannot attend can follow all of the activities by searching the hashtag. Your hashtag usage will also make it easier for anyone interested in the event to follow the keynote speaker, special activities, and more. Often quotes from speakers are tweeted at events and they are combined with the event hashtags.

Organically (an award-winning social media marketing agency) can boost your campaigns with appropriate hashtags and connect you with more customers! Talk to us at Organically – we’ve got the social solutions for your business!