Proper Use of Hashtags!
Surely by now you know what hashtags are, but incase you don’t know, they are tags that are tied to your favorite breakfast side dish (just kidding). Hashtags are a form of metadata used to make social media content searchable by using a pound sign (#- that rarely used button on telephones) followed with a word or phrase with no spacing.
Sadly, as the popularity of using hashtags increases, so does the mis-use of them as well. So before you “hashtag-away”, take a look at these tips on how to use them properly vs. the improper way.
- Keep your hashtags simple! - Imagine I used my entire first paragraph as a hashtag “#Surelybynowyouknowwhathashtagsare.....”. Yeah, you probably will spend over an hour trying to figure out where one word ends and the next begins, but the odds of someone searching a hashtag as such are 19,826,345,378,298,468,298 to 1. Keep them simple! Do not make them as complicated as reading the number in the previous sentence. You can have more than one word in your hashtag (no spaces), but no more than three. The more words in your phrase, the less likely it will be searched.
- Make sure your hashtags are searched and relevant! - Before you make a post, do a search for your desired hashtag on the social platform that you are using. If you find results that fit the demographic you are targeting with the hashtag, then you know it is a good one. No one is going search “#MyCatOrion”, nor will a bakery find new customers with a hashtag like “PlanetKrypton”.
- Pick one or two ‘good’ hashtags, not 50 that you have no clue why you used them! - Do not overload your post with hastags. You will drown out your post’s content and appear spammy, and no one likes spam.... NO ONE! One or two per post is ideal. Choose hashtags that are completely relevant to your post. Nothing is more irritating than a post that is followed with 50 hashtags. It just looks annoying too!
Now that you know how to use hashtags the proper way, you may now join the elite group of successful hashtaggers that are found in searches. Stay classy my friends!
