If you live in the 21st century and have access to the internet, you have definitely seen a hashtag and more than likely even used one in your day.
But if you have a business on social media, you need to learn exactly how to use hashtag marketing to boost your social media presence. Not only can the right hashtags improve the visibility of your posts, they can also improve engagement.
But how do you know what to hashtag and when for maximum results? Every platform is different, so we’ve broken it down for you based on the channel:
Twitter Hashtags
The History
In August of 2007, the Twitter hashtag was born thanks to Chriss Messina who sent the following out into the Twitterverse:
how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?
— ☞ Chris Messina ☜ (@chrismessina) August 23, 2007
Twitter formally adopted the hashtag in July of 2009, allowing anything with a # in front of it to become hyper-linked together. Trending Topics soon followed, and the rest is history.
Twitter was the pioneer of the soical media hashtag, and other platforms followed suit.
The Facts
- Tweets with hashtags receive 2X more engagement than those without.
- Tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% higher engagement than those with three or more.
- Tweets that use more than two hashtags actually show a 17% drop.
- Tweets with one or more hashtag are 55% more likely to be retweeted.
The Conclusion
In order to make hashtags work for your marketing tweets use hashtags on Twitter, but never exceed 2 hashtags in a single tweet.
Facebook Hashtags
The History
Facebook incorporated hashtags as a feature in June of 2013, but they had a much rougher start than Twitter. Some claim this is due to the more personal nature of Facebook. Users on Facebook did not see the need to find a community of like-minded users, because they were already friends with everyone they know in real life.
Whatever the reason, Facebook hashtags have increasingly become more important, but they are still not as important as they are on Twitter.
The Facts
- 1-2 hashtags results in 593 average interactions per post.
- The number of interactions decline as hashtags increase.
The Conclusion
Hashtags are not as important on Facebook as on Twitter, but consider using one or two hashtags to increase engagement. Just like with Twitter, don’t use more than two in any one post.
Instagram Hashtags
The History
It may seem that hashtags have been a part of Instagram forever, but this social platform did have not quite a year where hashtags were not available. Instagram launched in March 2010, and hashtags were introduced in January of 2011.
Hashtags were introduced to help users discover great photos and communities, but hashtags on Instagram differ from Twitter. In fact, it has been proved that the more hashtags on Instagram, the better!
The Facts
- Interactions are highest on Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags at 79.5% interaction per 1k followers.
- Using 9 hashtags gets the second highest with 49.5% interaction per 1k followers.
- Using 0 OR 10 hashtags results in the lowest ineraction.
The Conclusion
When it comes to Instagram, forget everything you learned from Twitter. These two platforms are definitely not the same, so make sure to optimize your posts accordingly. Aim for 11 or more hashtags per post on Instagram.
LinkedIn Hashtags
The History
There was a period of time where LinkedIn allowed hashtags to be used as a search tool on the platform. But as of July of 2013, LinkedIn removed the functionality and has not reintroduced it.
The Facts
Basically, hashtags on LinkedIn are currently unfunctional.
The Conclusion
Don’t bother with hashtags on LinkedIn. Using them can make you appear unprofessional, or even disconnected from the platform you are on.
Hashtags are ultimately a powerful tool for your marketing, but before you implement the same strategy across all of your platforms, keep in mind that each channel has its own way of utilizing them. Learning the best strategies can assist you in boosting your presence and post engagement.