For more than a decade, hashtags have been a part of social media. The trend started on Twitter but has spread to most major social media networks, including Facebook and Instagram. Why so popular? It’s all about improved searchability. According to Twitter, hashtags help keywords show up in searches, which means it helps your messages show up in searches. In fact, if you click on a word with a hashtag in any tweet, Twitter will show you a list of other tweets from public accounts that include the same hashtag.
Are hashtags still relevant? You betcha. The right hashtags can help your company be part of relevant social media searches. Plus, you can track important topics and become part of the online conversation.
It’s easy enough to create a hashtag – just insert the pound sign (#) before the word (no space, no punctuation). So, video production becomes #videoproduction or 4K becomes #4K. You can also combine words to create a searchable phrase. For example, we use #NABShow when we tweet for some of our exhibiting clients, as it helps people find our information when they are searching for news about the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas. How popular are your hashtags? Head over to www.hashtagify.com and get some free insight (or more detailed analysis for a monthly fee).
Twitter recommends using no more than two hashtags per tweet. Research from Socialbakers showed engagement from Facebook users drops when you use more than one hashtag in a post, but Twitter users stayed engaged with up to five hashtags in a tweet. My advice: Like so many other things in life, hashtags are better in moderation.