Everything You Need to Know About Hashtags According to Johnson Nguyen
Hashtags have invaded popular culture and become a social media mainstay since first being introduced on Twitter over a decade ago.
Hashtags help social media sites categorize content in a more relevant way by having the users themselves signal the most important keywords or ideas related to their post.
The average social media user tends to use them in frivolous ways, including by using overly broad terms such as #excited to express their feelings, or completely random hashtags in attempts to be witty (#CheckOutAllTheWordsImCrammingIntoThisHashtag). Those hashtags won’t help anyone find those posts.
Companies doing social media marketing aren’t immune from making some of the same mistakes according to Johnson Nguyen of Vancouver, British Columbia, who manages an online marketing firm dedicated to building traffic and sales through effective use of social media and other strategies.
He shares his most valuable hashtag tips below and offers recommendations for some powerful tools that can help companies improve their ability to find and use hashtags.
Hashtag Use by Platform
The importance and use of hashtags varies by social media platform according to Nguyen, who says that while Facebook and Pinterest have this feature, the use of them should be avoided (or used sparingly) on those platforms.
On Facebook, data shows that posts with hashtags have far less chance of going viral, while on Pinterest your hashtag may not be indexed at all, diverting people away from your pin for no benefit. If you want to use hashtags on Pinterest, Nguyen says to create a unique hashtag that will bind your content (and preferably only your content) together.
The story is different on Twitter and Instagram, where hashtag use is key. Given the limited space for characters on Twitter, the smaller a hashtag is, the better, not only for your own purposes, but for the likelihood of others using it as well. Stick to 1–2 hashtags per tweet and if you do use multiple words in a hashtag, capitalize each word to make it easier to read (#LikeThis).
On Instagram, the more hashtags you use, the better. Many posts have giant walls of hashtags after them to try and find searching users, and data shows that interaction is highest on posts which have hashtag volume pushing into the double digits.
Finding Great Hashtags to Use
Being involved in the latest and greatest hashtag trends is a great way to be noticed on Twitter, though Johnson Nguyen encourages marketers to stick to relevant trends that can work with their brand or messaging.
What the Trend and Hashtagify are two simple websites that can be used to find the most popular trends by time period and region. Twitonomy is even more robust, providing a full suite of analytical tools and data related to every aspect of an account’s Twitter history. Search analytics can also be run on hashtags, revealing key influencers that use them and other important data.
Johnson Nguyen stresses that if you’re going to hop on a hashtag trend, you need to research it to ensure you understand its current usage and whether it fits your message. Many seemingly innocuous hashtags (think #MeToo) are actually confronting very serious social trends, to which tone-deaf posts could prove extremely embarrassing for your brand.
#happyhashtagging
