Let’s See if Facebook Hashtags Get More Reach!
Every business with a Facebook page wants one thing — MORE ENGAGEMENT!
Achieving that has become excruciatingly challenging over the last few years.
Chasing Facebook’s algorithm is the equivalent of a dog chasing its tail. It’s pointless.
(At least watching a dog chase its tail is fun to watch from afar.)
But, what if something as simple as using Facebook hashtags could increase reach and engagement without spending a penny?
If so, I’m in!!
A Bit of Background about Facebook Hashtags
Spend just a few minutes on any social media site and you’ll see posts using hashtags. They started on Twitter and through the years have made their way onto every social media site you can think of.
Hashtags are a great way to throw your content in with other content using the same hashtag.
Think of them as a way to quickly categorize your content so others can search with just a click or tap and then be shown every post using that hashtag.
Facebook introduced hashtags back in 2013 as a way to make conversations more “Public”.
You’ve likely seen your friends or business pages you follow using hashtags, sometimes to help with branding and sometimes just to be ironic or funny #whydidIjustuseahashtag .
According to QuickSprout, when Facebook launched hashtags things didn’t go too well:
SocialBakers reported in early 2014 that less hashtags on Facebook resulted in more engagement — which is the exact opposite of what happens on Twitter or Instagram.
In late 2015, I asked 13 Facebook experts for their insight on using hashtags on Facebook. Here’s a summary of what they advised:
- Use hashtags (1 or 2 only) when they make sense and when you use something relevant that people can filter on to find more relevant conversation — Ian Cleary
- You can’t really go wrong by using them — Mike Gingerich
- For some reason, Facebook hashtags have no significant impact so far, at least for marketers — Francisco Rosales
- Hashtags can help your posts be more searchable on Facebook — Zsuzsa Kecsmar
- If you’re not going to use them correctly, then please stay away — Rosh Khan
- Hashtags on Facebook have not caught on like they have on other social sites — Andrea Vahl
So many freakin’ contradictions!! It’s obvious no one really knows for sure.
So instead of basing our thoughts on using hashtags on opinions, let’s do some testing!
Hypothesis: Facebook hashtags will NOT have a positive impact on reach or engagement.
Plan of Attack
In order to get measurable data on the impact of hashtags on Facebook, I ran tests on three unique Facebook pages.
- Space Walk of Central Texas — This is my own business page with 5161 Likes. It’s over 3 years old and I post to the page a few times per day.
- Fans of Bigfoot– This is a page I created about 4 years ago as a passion page about Bigfoot currently sitting at 4022 Likes.
- Grace Bible Church — The page has over 790 Likes. I post to the page often, primarily inspirational images and updates/announcements for the church.
I posted 3 photos per day for 3 weeks (63 posts per page) alternating posts with and without hashtags.
Photos were chosen as they tend to get better reach and engagement than links. Plus with this much content to schedule out for a test, photos were easily accessible and a wide variety could be posted with ease.
During this test, I did not boost any posts.
Again, trying to keep it all organic like a salad from Whole Foods!
Posts with hashtags typically had 5 or fewer hashtags, with some only have 1 to see if that resulted differently. All hashtags were placed in the caption of the photo (the description).
The hashtags were broad in nature, meaning they weren’t locally focused.
- Fans of Bigfoot was primarily #bigfoot #sasquatch #yeti #findingbigfoot
- Grace Bible Church was things like #god #jesus #christian #life #bible
- Space Walk I did throw in local hashtags for towns around me as well as #bouncehouse #spacewalk #usa #kids
What the Data Says Regarding Facebook Hashtags
Did Facebook posts with hashtags perform better than posts without hashtags?
After compiling the data Facebook posts with hashtags had CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REST OF THE DATA!
Originally published at www.agorapulse.com.
