You have seen hashtags in social media even if you have not used any when marketing your products and services. Hashtags are the words following a post starting with #. Hashtags in Instagram posts, Tweets and with images on Pinterest assist in understanding content and in finding it.
While anyone can add a couple of hashtags to their content success in marketing comes with the artful use of hashtags. Let us at Serpnova on Malta explain how to pick and apply hashtags to drive internet traffic and increase your bottom line.
What Are Hashtags?
For starters, a phrase or single word beginning with a # symbol is a hashtag. The expression has no spaces and is used in social media. The reason for using hashtags is to make finding you easier for potential customers.
The point of a hashtag is to be memorable, likely to draw attention, and easy to remember. You can go the comical route or be deadly serious. Some hashtags like #ThrowbackThursday have been around for more than a decade. #TBT comes from Sports Illustrated and goes back to 2006
Commonly hashtags are used for events, topics, or individual or business names. The following are all on Twitter.
- #GroundsMaintenance
- #Landscaping
- #Lawncare
- #Lawn
- #PropertyMaintenance
Just because the name for your type of business is already taken, you can be a little creative and choose something that carries the gist of your name and what you do. One that we found for a lawn care business is #SpringAhead which seems appropriate as spring is when we start doing yard work.
How to Find Relevant Hashtags
In our digital marketing work at Serpnova, Ltd. for both our clients on Malta and those scattered across the planet, we find that choosing the correct hashtags far outweighs using dozens of hashtags for success in your marketing. A few hashtags that are carefully researched should be your goal
To find the hashtags that you need, start with Twitter (where the hashtag began). Log into your account and choose the search option on the menu. Follow that link to the Trending tab. Click that tab and you will see topics and hashtags that are trending on Twitter. Or, search for a hashtag that is appropriate for your business.
Other tools that will lead you to the hashtags that you need include the following:
- Hashtagify Me: This free tool helps track down Instagram and Twitter hashtags.
- HootSuite: This tool not only helps you find useful hashtags but also helps you manage your social media accounts. Use the Streams feature to find hashtags that are appropriate for your business.
- Google Trends: This free tool from Google is not just for finding good keyword search phrases for your website but also helps you see topics that are trending and can be used in posts on Instagram and Twitter.
- Pinterest Trends: Like Google Trends this free service is searchable and gives you a list of trending topics.
We tell our clients at Serpnova to dedicate time to hashtag research. Especially when you find a business with whom you might like to connect, follow them you may find mutually beneficial interests. If you need help with researching and applying hashtags to your social media, contact us at Serpnova, Ltd. on Malta.
Best Practices for Use of Hashtags
So, you have done some research and have found several great hashtags that should work for your business. What do you do now? Here are our suggestions.
- Focus on trending hashtags. Figure out ways to make them fit the needs of your business. Many times this has to do with the time of the year, holidays, or seasons when your products and services sell well. Use hashtags related to the holiday or time of year to lead into suggesting your services and products.
- Don’t be afraid to team up with allied businesses (but not competitors). As an example, moving companies need referrals and commonly run into people who need a realtor. Work with a local realtor if you are a moving company to find customers and cross-refer. The same hashtags will probably work for both of you.
- Combining hashtags will help to expand your customer base. This will especially be the case when you expand your services and line of products. When you do this, expand your list of hashtags to reflect what is new.
- A custom hashtag can be very useful providing that it will be found in searches and clearly identifies your business. Be careful about picking complicated phrases that will just become another expression about a million searches back from first place. Ask us for help with this. At Serpnova we help create functional customer hashtags for our local Malta clients and our multinational customers as well.
Be careful when trying to apply trending hashtags to your business. Even well-known multinationals have committed blunders in this regard such as with using 9-11 hashtags! If you need a bit of advice, check with us.
Effective Hashtag Use Examples
KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken did very well with #NationalFriedChickenDay. But, you don’t need to be an internationally known franchise to use a hashtag like that. It would work just as well for your small town takeout restaurant featuring home-friend chicken. This is a case where keeping your eye out for trending hashtags worked really well.
A built-from-scratch hashtag that worked well is #TweetFromTheSeat. Charmin used this humorous approach. As with the KFC example, it did hurt to be a well-known brand but anyone in the same business could have used this hashtag and done well. The key to the success of this hashtag is the injection of just the right amount of humor.
Why Your Research Your Hashtags
Burger King messed up when they used #WTFF as a hashtag without seeing if the letters might stand for anything besides “What the French Fry.†It turns out that #WTFF was already in use and that FF had a totally different meaning that did little to help Burger King sell its fries.
The bottom line is that hashtag marketing can be extremely helpful for your local businesses providing that you do the research, pick hashtags carefully, and don’t try to force the issue by fitting a square hashtag into a round application in social media.
If you need a bit of help getting all of this started or simply would like a professional to run your social media marketing, contact us a Serpnova, Ltd. on Malta for help.
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