I’ve seen brands grow by effective use of hashtags on social media in such a way that you just say wow. Most of the times, hashtags used well and effective can become a cutting-edge tool for effective marketing. But how do you use hashtags effectively? Here are a few insights:
- One Word
You can put a hash just before a word – one word. This is the common thing to do, and this hashtags do better in SMO, though they are sometimes not so specific, can be heavily used (sometimes with and in things that do not relate with your brand), and may be difficult to track effectively. Here, #CHAMPS or #InfluenceZW or #marketing.
- Phrase
This one, well thought and worked on can carry a brand through the roof – achieve great results and create an avalanche of activity and increase in audience. Though, the phrase has to have no spacing in-between the words that make it, like, #SocialMarketing or #contentmarketing. If you do want to show that it’s 2 words, you’ll have to put underscore in place of space, like #social_media, #Social_Media_Engagement. This has not been performing so well recently though.
- Brand
Well, this should be self-explanatory at this point, right? You hashtag your brand name on most of your posts, e.g. #InfluenceZW or, #Bata, #CocaCola, #KFC, etc.. Hopefully soon enough as your hashtags takes off more people, known and unknown to you will start using that hashtag in their posts when they share things that are in line with your brand. This is a smart way of building a brand on social media.
- Trending
Check what’s trending in your industry. Most social networks offer you the opportunity to see what many people are talking about in that time, in the world, your country and locality. And, when you use those hashtags wherever relevant, you may end up logged on every time because the kind of results you get there will be great.
DON’TS
- After A Word
Putting the hash symbol after the word will not make it a hashtag, it’s just some thing – mostly, trash. For instance cupcakes#.
- Space
When using phrases, do not put space between words, it will be a broken hashtag, so the first word get’s tagged and it won’t achieve much. For example #Zim Decides 2018 instead of #ZimDecides2018 or #Zim_Decides_2018
- Other Symbols
Do not put any other symbol in the hashtag except the hash and underscore. It’s unnecessary and may break the hashtag e.g. #Tuesday.thoughts
- Anything
And then there are these people, kkkk, I personally feel like they come from another planet, or trying a new language, like one that doesn’t use speech. I mean how do you just throw a bunch of words and phrases as hashtags? When these hashtags are thrown and aren’t doing anything except what hashtags are meant to, they’re litter and they may hurt your socialness on social media, you humaneness. Here, #walking, #sleepingattatendanow and related.
- Two At Once
I try to get an explanation, more specifically, an excuse for this one. But I keep getting funny ones. I’ll share two – maybe this is for emphasis or, to make sure the hashtag is safe hahah. This nullifies the hashtag, it becomes nothing. Here, #helloSeptember#, #easter#holiday, Ramadan#Mubarack#, etc.
Here on now, you’ll use hashtags smartly, in a cutting-edge way. Are you ready?
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