The first mobile phones appeared with a hash key that no one could call what it was for. However, how things have changed that now there is no publication worth; it’s salt without the hashtag of rigour!
Using hashtags has become a common practice in digital strategies, but does it make sense to use them? Do they improve the reach of publications? As an expert agency in the management of social networks, we give you the answer in this post.
What is a Hashtag?
A hashtag is a word, expression or group of alphanumeric characters preceded by the # symbol and without spaces between them that are used to classify or label a publication in digital channels.
Hashtags refer to a topic or a conversation, especially on social media. With its use, various publications are classified and grouped so that users can track these contents easily and quickly. Although its popularity is mainly due to Twitter and Instagram, its presence has spread to other social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Why Should You Use Them?
Hashtags allow users to quickly find the content that interests them on digital channels, which is why brands and companies should use them if they want to become more visible, join relevant conversations and be easily found when a user performs organic searches within social networks.
Including these tags may seem simple, but it is not so easy if you want them to be effective. It is not a question of including hashtags to be included, but it must be done according to a defined strategy and coherent with the global content strategy. Studying those that can benefit your business is the first step to taking advantage of them.
Benefits Of Using Hashtags
It is proven that using hashtags is beneficial for your posts on social networks to have a greater organic reach and gain views.
In addition, the use of tags has other benefits:
- They allow you to organise your content and have your publications classified.
- They improve the engagement of your community of followers.
- They increase the organic traffic of your social channels.
- They make it easy to monitor content and measure your publications.
- They help create trends.
But beware: you don’t need to use 20 hashtags to enjoy these benefits; use a few but well-chosen ones to improve your publications strategically and help you achieve your goals.
There are usually only 2 or 3 hashtags that work and cause an increase in the visibility of the publications. When the hashtag is successful, a publication can get 500 more interactions. Hence, it is essential to carry out an exhaustive study before using one or another label.
How To Choose Them?
Depending On The Social Network
Each social network has its code; when choosing hashtags, you must consider this. You will not be able to use the same number and type of hashtags on Twitter as on Facebook, so the first step is to have a selection adapted to each network.
Depending On Your SEO Strategy
Tags make life easier for users by organising the content posted on the web. Suppose your business follows an SEO strategy to improve its organic positioning in search engines. In that case, analysing which keywords bring you the most traffic is essential to determine if they are likely to become hashtags.
Depending On Your Community
As you understand how your target audience searches and navigates, you’ll know which hashtags to include in your posts and how to use them to make them valuable or engaging.
Depending On Your Content Strategy
Just like your content must be consistent and creative, hashtags must be too. Hence, it is important to study which hashtags interest you and carry out tests to see how they work.
Strategies To Get Followers on Instagram
Before explaining how to use hashtags to increase organic reach and interactions strategically, I will talk about other more effective methods in the Social Media department to get followers on Instagram.
- Investing in advertising campaigns in our online marketing agency, part of our budget is dedicated to specific advertising campaigns and promotion of publications; this alone will not generate an increase in followers, but if our profile is active and we generate relevant content, Don’t worry the number of followers will increase. A little trick, do campaigns on social networks for traffic and conversions, and you will see how your followers increase without paying for them; this is because Facebook Ads will only charge you for a visit, the lead or the sale in this type of campaign.
- Contests and raffles of your brand. The mechanics are simple and known to all: follow the account that makes the giveaway, mention 2-3 friends in the comments to promote organic reach by getting them to participate too, and give a piece of advice, if you have a contest or giveaway, dedicate part of the budget and make an advertising campaign.
- Campaigns with influencers, if you have highly identified influencers in your sector, carry out campaigns to recommend your product, reviews or a raffle or promo, and you will surely be able to increase your community with users related to what you offer so that they can be future customers. IMPORTANT, the influencer has to have a small and active community for the increase to be noticed.
- Interact with other brands, and be careful; this does not mean you are SPAM. Interactions have to be as accurate as possible, human and timely. For example: If you join a conversation on an influencer’s account, really participate and add value to that conversation, do not try to sneak your sales message.
- ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS interact with your followers; it’s true, not all comments are to be answered, but at least like their words.
- Have a content strategy focused on the user and not on selling, be creative; this will help you get followers.
