The Importance of Hashtags

Advanced Digital Blog Series, Marketing, Social Media Marketing | posted on December 2, 2016

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.

Follow us on Instagram for additional 12 Days of Christmas!

Leave a Reply