Hashtags, They are Your Friend

Hashtags are everywhere! Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and Google+ all use hashtags. Do you completely understand how they can help your business? 

Hashtags help Internet marketers communicate online. It is very important you know how to implement hashtags into your social media marketing strategy. Hashtags allow you to join conversations about anything that is relevant to your industry with real time public conversations being displayed. Think of keywords, use targeted keywords to get the best results. You should use this feature to engage with consumers and stay current with the news in your industry. A marketer can also add hashtags in an advertising campaigns to amplify your reach over multiple social networks. 

Hashtags are a great way to organize content and be active on the current trends. I have seen some hashtag abuse so I am offering a few suggestions to make sure you are getting the most bang for your efforts. 

Hashtag Etiquette 


1. Make sure your hashtag relates to your message. Do not add hashtags to a message if it has nothing to do with the message, that is considered hashtag spamming. It will also make you look like you don't know what you are doing. Consumers don't want to search #Dogs and end up seeing a picture of a bird in the results. 

2. Keep your hashtags short and to the point. Three words should be the maximum for a single hashtag. Anything longer becomes really hard to read and your message may be lost in translation. For example; #HashtagsThatTurnIntoSentencesAndGoesOnForALongTimeAreAnnoying. 

3. Use hashtags to help build brand awareness. By creating a unique hashtag for your business you are starting a new real-time feed with that particular hashtag. So when a consumer clicks on your unique hashtag they will pull up your businesses messages, pictures, or links. An unique hashtag will also help you get noticed and bring attention back to your business. 

4. Do not hashtag every word in your message. A message with a lot of hashtags is hard for the consumer to read, so focus on the subject of your message and add your hashtags at the end. 

5. No spaces between words. If you want to make your hashtag easier to read use capital letters #SocialMediaMarketing will pull up the same results as #socialmediamarketing 

6. Punctuation marks and special characters are not supported. 

7. Search using hashtags you will be amazed to find out all the valuable info that is hiding behind some of the most used hashtag in social media. 

Hashtags are great tool for marketers and now that all the major social networks are supporting clickable hashtags this will be very helpful when trying to engage with the consumer. 

Popular Hashtags for Professional Speakers 

#Speakers 
#Coaches 
#Consultants 
#Authors 
#entrepreneurs 
#innovation 
#business 
#Keynote