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With approximately 55% of the world's population using social media, it's vital that your business is taking the necessary steps to reach your ideal audience. Most social media platforms allow you to set up a profile and optimize it to reach a specific audience. However, many marketing teams are still unaware of the power of tools such as hashtags and how they can help boost traffic and amplify your social media reach.
Before you start adding a bunch of hashtags to your next post, it's crucial that you understand exactly what they are and how to properly use them to your advantage.
What exactly is a hashtag?
A hashtag is a keyword or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#). It allows users to find your post when they search for content related to that keyword or phrase. Hashtags are available on various social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
You can use hashtags to engage with your audience, or you can use them to expand your reach and grow your audience. However, it's vital that you use hashtags strategically. Not all hashtags are created equal, and some will cause your posts to get lost in the mix or may not be relevant to your business.
When used correctly, hashtags are a very useful tool that can work to your advantage. By adding the right hashtag to your social media posts, you can increase your visibility and expand your social media reach.
Can you use hashtags on any social media platform?
While hashtags are widely used across most social media platforms, there are some limitations. While platforms such as Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram all utilize hashtags as a way to group content, there are some platforms on which hashtags don't work quite as well.
For example, while Facebook has recently been pushing users to use hashtags more often, studies have repeatedly shown that hashtags don't work nearly as well on the platform due to various privacy settings and restrictions. This is because hashtags are used to collect similar content into a single stream for easy viewing, and Facebook users generally have their posts and profiles set to private, making hashtags largely ineffective.
3 best practices for using hashtags to improve social media reach
With the average social media user spending roughly 2 hours and 22 minutes a day on their favorite platforms, your business must understand how to best use hashtags to help you increase your overall social media reach and capitalize on this audience.
Whether you're new to hashtags or you're simply looking for a quick refresher, here are three hashtag best practices worth noting:
1. Focus on quality over quantity
While many social media users like to use as many hashtags as possible to maximize their reach, this isn't necessarily the best approach. In fact, adding too many hashtags can actually have a negative impact on your reach.
While using 10 or 20 hashtags on a post might seem like it will help your post reach a larger audience, it's essential to keep in mind that most users will only see the first and last few hashtags, meaning you're only reaching a small portion of your overall audience.
2. Make sure your hashtags are relevant
While there are many different ways that you can use hashtags to your advantage, it's important to make sure that your hashtags are relevant and appropriate for your brand. Not only will this make your posts more engaging to your audience, but it will also help to increase your overall social media reach.
You want to make sure you are not only using relevant hashtags, but that they are specific as well. For example, if you're a small local business with a physical storefront, you should consider using local hashtags, such as the name of your city. This is a great way to reach local customers, and it can also help you boost your local search engine optimization (SEO).
3. Use your own hashtags
While you can use hashtags generated by other users, it's essential that you also create and use your own hashtags. This is a great way to develop a sense of community with your audience, and it can also help you to reach a larger audience.
For example, you can create a hashtag for a specific event, promotion, or contest. By adding this hashtag to your social media posts, you can easily track how many people are using it and how many impressions you're getting on your posts. If it's a successful hashtag, you can continue to use it in the future.
Amplify your social media reach with more business tips and tricks from BBB
Hashtags can be a powerful tool for your business. However, you need to make sure that you are using them correctly to improve your social media reach and better engage with your audience.
So, make sure you are taking the time to test out different hashtags, and see what works best for your brand.
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BBB of Southern Piedmont and Western N.C. contributed this article.