29 DAYS WRITING CHALLENGE — #17 Hashtags. Who Are They, Why Do You Need Them And When Are They Not Helpful?
Let’s go a hash-tagging
Hashtags are like the voice to a write-up, an article or even a tweet — like a town crier that goes to neighbouring villages to announce the coming of your write-up (in other words… create awareness).
Hashtags have become an integral part of our social interaction, as individuals, as marketers and as influencers even. Despite its popularity in this terrain, many people still don’t know the benefits or how to properly use them.
There’s no one size fit all definition of hashtags. However, we could say here, that hashtags are words or phrases that serve as keywords to pull out only the content labelled with the searched tag.
This means that when you use a hashtag with your article or caption, every time people type in that hashtag, there’s a chance that your content will show up. This is good right? It is!
Hashtags have the potential to:
· Increase your content viewership — You can become part of a trending conversation or be more visible in your niche by using and leveraging on an existing hashtag.
· Help with measuring the impact of a campaign — If you’re organising a campaign, creating a unique hashtag is an easy way to get people to interact and monitor the engagement.
· Set you apart — Like wedding hashtags! The more unique, the more it sets you and bae apart.
· Get you more customers or followers — The right hashtags help you get new customers in your industry and in around you. You can also get more followers when you leave meaningful inputs on trending topics.
Just like salt, there are cases where too little salt isn’t good enough, where little salt is okay, but there are no cases where too much is okay. (Replace salt with hashtags). Here are some best practices
· Don’t use too many hashtags at once
· Don’t jump into all trending hashtags, especially those that have nothing to do with what you’re selling or promoting
· Know what hashtags work for certain platforms
· Create realistic hashtags that your target audience can search for
Anyone can take advantage of hashtags, you just need to discover why you need them, what you need for and when are they not helpful. #Havefun!
