How to effectively use hashtags in your social media marketing strategy

The use of hashtags on social media has helped to drastically improve the success of digital marketing strategies for millions of companies. In fact, research has shown that Tweets which contain hashtags are seen by twice as many people and are retweeted 55% more often. As well as creating a global database of categorised content, hashtags provide companies with an effective way of analysing user data and traffic figures. Check out these tips on using hashtags effectively.

Hashtags have been proven to increase engagement across a wide range of online platforms but it’s important that you research specific hashtags for your market sector. Analyse the use of hashtags by competitors and consumers within your industry in order to identify common trends and stay relevant on social media platforms. Also, knowing what a hashtag is and how the system works on different platforms is essential for new companies.

It’s easy to hashtag every word within your social media posts but you may find that you’re wasting your time and creating posts that users can’t even understand. Hashtags should be used for keywords that often appear in user searches. For example, if you’re writing a post about a sports app, keywords would include things like sport, apps, technology etc.

In the world of social media, new keywords pop up every day and it’s important that you stay up to date with trends if you want to stay relevant online. Monitor your social media platforms and keep track of what’s trending so if you come across a popular hashtag that relates to your brand, you can utilise its popularity and drive up engagement.

Knowing the correct hashtags to use is vital but recognising the right time and platform to use them is also important. If, for example, you’re communicating with users through a Facebook reply or a retweet, it’s not necessary to use hashtags. Announcing new releases or updates to your product or service is a perfect time to include hashtags as you’re looking to maximise your audience.

Creating consistency with your hashtags across multiple social media platforms can help drive up engagement and increase traffic to your business. All major platforms have now integrated the use of hashtags into their service so be sure to look for common trends.