#How to use Hashtags Correctly to Market

your Twitter and Instagram page

Using hashtags can be a very cumbersome process if you are trying to come up with creative ways to market your Twitter and Instagram page, particularly because you want to reach a groupof people as fast as possible and gain more followers.

Though it may seem as if it is easier to get followers on a personal Twitter or Instagram page, the use of hashtags andthe followers you get as a result are just about the same as a brand page. This is especially important for those who areon the slightly more creative side of an industry, such as acting, modeling or offering of services.

2 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

How To use HasHTags CorreCTly To MarkeT your TwITTer and InsTagraM page

#

###

#

3 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

To fully understand how to use a hashtag, you must first understand what they are. A hashtag (or a pound sign for new users, if you will) is the symbol that turns a word or phrase into a searchable link that automatically becomes discoverable on social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram. When clicked, users are able to discover postsby other users that have used the same hashtag.

Though any word or phrase can be used as a hashtag, it is important to understand which should or should not be used, especially if you are using them to market your Twitter or Instagram page. In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can use hashtags correctly to help market your Twitterand Instagram for your business.

How to use a hashtag

Keep Hashtag Use ConsistantThere are times when you need to get out as much information as you possibly can over social media, sometimes with its obvious limitations in characters (i.e. Twitter) and this might mean that you are sending out multiple tweets with chunks of writing. Think about a situation where you need to respond to an inquiring customer or something that needs an urgent response. While that is just fine in some cases, you might also want to add hashtags in most tweets that aren’t carrying heavy loads of information.

The key to using hashtags in a post on Twitter or Instagram is to make sure they are consistent and sprinkled throughout your posts. Some users have said hashtags even help them to take note of certain posts simply because there was a hashtag that drew their attention.

Though Instagram doesn’t have a 140-character limit and aggregates pictures instead of an actual post consisting of text, you might still want to add a few relevant ones to make sure your post reaches the right audience.

4 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

#

#

#

#

#

#

Use Fewer Words in HashtagsThis is something that can sometimes be ignored if you write a post in a humorous

context, but should be done if you are posting any other types of posts. Adding

too many words to a hashtag will continue to make it harder for social networks to

pick it up and will make someone less likely to search for it. Simply put, if no one else

has used that hashtag, there will be no posts to discover when you click it.

Hashtags are usually very short and to the point so they are easily discoverable on

social networks. This is why companies that use hashtags in their tweets tend to make

acronyms out of company names or events, so as to make it easier to promote the

hashtag and get people to use it.

5 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

#

#

#

.....

.

...

Avoid Too Many Hashtagsin Each Post

6 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

Just like adding too many words to a hashtag, adding too many hashtags in a post on your Twitter and Instagram page may drive away your intended audience. The reason being, your message was lost among all of the hashtags that link to different posts and topics. Too many hashtags in each post will also make your page look more cluttered than it should.

Take a few seconds after you type out a post and see if any adjustments in terms of relevance and length need to be made to your hashtags. Don’t fret though, curbing the number of hashtags you put will help to make your post optimal for discovery on social networks and will get your message across the way you want it too.

#

##

# ## ###

##

##

#

# ## ##

##

#

# #

## ##

###

#

Search a Social Network for Popular Buzzwords You Can Use

Coming up with hashtags that are effective can be tough, especially with the added pressure of reaching a certain number or type of people. However, there are ways to test the waters and see what is already popular among Twitter or Instagram users. You can do this by searching certain words that may be effective hashtags. Most social networks allow you to search a topic and see what messages and hashtags others have posted. For example, Twitter allows you to do a general search of a topic by clicking a small magnifying glass near the “Compose Tweet” icon.

If the topic is preceded by a hashtag (#), you will see how many people are posting about that topic and if it is a popular term being used to describe a certain topic. If one topic turns out to be a dud, you can continue to search until you find something that it effective. Usually, this brings up some great results, especially because Twitter and Instagram are a lot more public in terms of structure than other social networks.

7 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

#

Hashtags Can’t Have Special Characters or Spaces

8 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly

! *$% &

+.

Learning how to use hashtags correctly means understanding that certain characters or spaces are not permitted and will alter hashtags in your post. Social networks do not allow you to use special characters (*, $, @) because they often break the links that are created when a hashtag is inserted.

So, if you have a term that has a special character, only a certain portion of that term, up to the point of that special character will be visible in the hashtag. A space while writing two words in a hashtag will leave you with the same result so be weary of inserting characters and spaces into hashtags.

Choose Hashtags thatare Easy to RememberHashtags are great for getting word out about something you are working on and want to promote but keep in mind that thousands of other businesses will also be doing the same. Many times, this can lead to some competition and will require a little bit more creativity on your part to come up with a hashtag that is easy to remember.

Using acronyms to represent entire phrases, events, or projects can help to minimize the number of words and make it easier to remember, similar to a stock symbol (Starbucks being SBUX) or a representation of a city (Atlanta being ATL).

9 | How to Use Hashtags Correctly