By Wayne Brown
It used to be that only websites relied on keywords to help with SEO, but nowadays it’s common practice for users to tag their social media posts with keywords in order to make topics searchable by others. In fact, it’s become so common that people use them in everything from text messages to advertisements. The question is can putting a simple pound symbol in front of words really help your business?
Hashtags work when a user clicks on the word or phrase that is preceded by a hash mark (#) and indexed by a social network, then taken to another page that collects all the posts with the same hashtagged keyword or phrase. If promoted by enough people, a topic can “trend” and attract more users to a discussion. Keep in mind that every users’ trending topics are different based on their location and social connections. Sometimes people use hashtags with words that are used to convey emotion rather than for categorizing. For example, “This article is boring. #boring #fallingasleep”
For companies, creating a hashtag can make your brand stronger by allowing you to trend within your own circle of fans and followers. It’s important to use words that are relevant to your company and brand so that your campaigns do well. Using words that you think are clever, might actually be ambiguous and lead users to conversations that have nothing to do with you. The best solution is to find and use positive keywords that are already associated with your brand, keeping it simple and direct. Some companies, like Nike, experimented with using hashtags on their print ads with much success. The key is to make sure you’re driving your followers to your social platforms so they can find your hashtag.
Considering that pretty much most social media platforms use hashtags to organize data in their own unique ways, it’s safe to say that this is not a “trend,” but is here to stay, since social media is already integrated into our lives. Using hashtags is a great way to share news and updates about your business to people who might be interested, but not necessarily searching for that particular topic, while ultimately making it easy to find these conversations in the first place.