Welcome to Day One of Advanced Digital’s 12 Days of Christmas Blog Series. Every other day, from now until Christmas Eve, you can expect a new post spanning many topics from Search Engine Optimization, to Web and Graphic Design as well as some Marketing information. We hope you join us this December!

We kick off this series talking about the importance of hashtags. Whether you love them and find yourself using them in your every day life for every one of your social media updates just because they’re fun, or you hate them as you don’t see the point in them: there is no denying that hashtags are an integral part of using social media.

Hashtags are utilized on many social media platforms in this day and age. From Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to Pinterest, Google+, and Youtube, the likelihood of you running into a piece of content without hashtags is very slim. But why are they important and what benefit do they bring to your business?

When clicking a hashtag on any of the aforementioned platforms, you’ll find many other public posts that include the same hashtag. For example, we use “#ADTipTuesday” on all of our Tuesday tip posts throughout our social media platforms. Not only will hashtags provide users with content relevant to their search, but it allows customers to track a specific news story or event easily.

The Do’s and Don’t of Hashtags

DO Keep it Relevant. There are many generic hashtags that receive a lot of views, and while it may be tempting to tack on a tag or two to your post in hopes of getting a little more traffic, consistently doing this can set the precedence that your brand cares more about the number of likes rather than the quality of content and conversion.
DO Research Your Brand Hashtag. Research the hashtags relevant to your brand. Has the hashtag been used previously? Is it going to help get your brand seen on social media? It is important to keep these stats in mind when generating content and choosing hashtags on your platforms.
DO Be Mindful of the Platform. You may notice Facebook posts have less hashtags being used, however Instagram and Twitter uses them more frequently. It is okay to have personality when using hashtags! A photo of a cup of coffee may have the tag, “MondayMotivation” or even “InstaGood”.
DON’T Tag Full Sentences. It is important to tag only relevant keywords in your description or comments. Tagging full sentences, while quirky or fun between friends in conversation, can become a nuisance or hard to read in a professional setting..
DON’T Over Do It. As mentioned previously, tagging relevant keywords is going to help your impressions and conversion. Choose the keyword phrases that fit the message of your content. You may track or use 30 hashtags, however, they don’t need to be used all at once.

It is important to be consistent with your brand hashtag across all social media platforms you use. Users should be able to hop from searching your brand on Instagram to Google+ and still find the same quality of content.

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Color is a powerful element that can make or break a design for websites or print. When you’re using a color palette that does not compliment each other or causes a negative reaction, you are risking not making a conversion.

The color spectrum is separated into cool (blues, purples and greens) and warm (yellow, orange and red) tones. Depending on the tones you are using, this can cause reactions such as excitement, confidence, anger or discomfort. Due to this, the overall idea and goal of the project should be taken into consideration when choosing your color palette. You should always ask your self: what are you wanting your audience to feel when they see your design?

What Colors Mean

Cool Tones

Green – Commonly associated with money, green is a color that symbolizes growth. A yellow-green can indicate illness while an olive-green is usually a color of peace.
Blue – Blue conveys sadness, calm, secure or professionalism. This color works well as an accent color but can also be used as a main color.
Purple – Many will associate this deep color with royalty, wealth or luxury.

Warm Tones

Red – Using reds are going to bring in strong emotions, usually associated with either anger or love. It is a fine line when using this color, but when used correctly it can be very impacting.
Orange – Orange is a warmer tone that draws attention to specific areas of your website, it brings forth emotions of excitement or enthusiasm. Website examples:
Yellow – If you’re looking to bring a cheerful color palette to your design, yellow is the way to go! (Although, it can also have the same effect as the red tones and cause anger.) Yellow is similar to white, in that it is going to be harder on the eyes so this color should be used sparingly.
Black – Although this color is usually thought of as grief, mystery or the unknown, black is a great formal and elegant color perfect for galleries or portfolios for videos, photos, digital art or web.
White – Cleanliness, innocence or purity are what come to mind if you ask someone their opinions on white. White can be harsher on the eyes, so it is important to have a nice balance of contrasting colors.

Our Favorite Color Resources

Kuler – Choose your color rule, analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound or shades so select a color palette perfect for your project!
Colour Lovers – Using Colour Lovers, you’re able to find palette for your home, web, print or digital art. You can even build your own color palette and share them with the design community.

Other resources include Paletton – and Coolors.

As mentioned in our “Social Media’s Importance in Your Business” article, social media allows you to expand your audience, improve customer service, establish trust with customers and increase your organic search engine rankings. As social media becomes increasingly important for business, you may be trying to decide which platform is the best for you. While it is important to cultivate as many avenues for customer engagement as possible, it is even more important to start with the platform(s) that would most align with your business needs.

Facebook: By using Facebook your company is able to answer any questions via messages or comments. As an incentive, you may offer specials for users that like your page or provide reviews. Users tend to use Facebook to look up a company and will follow brands they’re loyal to. Facebook now allows the ability to leave up to 5-star reviews which many use when doing their research for a certain product or service.

Twitter: Twitter allows you to offer easy customer support (in 140 characters or less) or via direct messages. Stay up to date on specific trends in the industry and drive traffic to specific pages on you website. Don’t let the limited character count sway you from not using this platform. Utilizing url link shortners (such as bit.ly or goo.gl) allows you to save on character count space.

G+: Before Google+ for businesses, Google Places was extremely limited on what you would be able to do. The days of only being able to add business hours, categories, contact information and location are long over. With Google+, businesses are able to add photos of their business, services, products and location. Reviews left by customers are not able to be removed, however you can reply to them which would show other potential customers that you are involved in your customer service.

LinkedIn: This platform is mostly for business to business services. With LinkedIn your business is able to improve its reputation, create visibility to businesses and generate leads.

Instagram: Instagram is perfect for businesses selling products or services by using photos. While building your portfolio with photos or videos (up to 60 seconds), create your own brand hashtags and engage with your following. Tip: Add your hashtags in the first comment of your post and keep your photo descriptions clutter-free!

For more information on this topic, read our post on why social media is important to your business. And follow us on our social media to keep up to date with our newest content!

The Advanced Digital team is focused on providing the best customer service to all of our web design, search engine optimization and marketing clients. Our goal is to be accessible, approachable and responsive, while guaranteeing customers confidence in doing business with us. If you have any questions about our services, you can reach out to us via email, live chat, phone and even social media!