Watch your Facebook hashtags.
If you choose irrelevant hashtags or add too many hashtags, it can distract your audience and disrupt your messaging.
I warn clients all of the time that on Facebook posts specifically, adding more than three hashtags is actually hurting the visibility of that post. They are creating a traffic jam of sorts if you will. And it’s surprising how many big marketing agencies do not know this.
“From a user standpoint, hashtags are used to categorize content, making the discovery of new or related articles and insights easy to do […] When hashtags are used incorrectly, people looking for new content have to dig through irrelevant, miscategorized content in order to get to what they’re actually looking for.” –Sprout Social
Amen to Sprout Social on that observation!
Now then, let’s talk about using hashtags on other social media outlets because the use is a bit different on say Instagram and Twitter.
Q: Should you use hashtags in your social media content?
A: Yes. Using hashtags is an effective way to enter new conversations and get your content in front of new eyes.
Q: Are there certain platforms where I should use hashtags?
A: Yes. Consumers tend to use hashtags more on Twitter and Instagram.
Q: Do social media users actually use hashtags?
A: Yes. When users are looking at social media, they click on hashtags to discover more relevant content and learn more about topics that relate to what they just looked at or read about.
Q: Are hashtags really an effective way to increase reach and engagement?
A: Yes. Think about it: if you post a photo on Instagram or Twitter without any hashtags, only your current followers will see it. However, if you post a photo on Instagram or Twitter and use effective hashtags, you have the potential to reach thousands of new potential followers and customers with that post.
Thanks for hashing out hashtags with us. Now that we’re all on the same page, we’d like to dive into the best ways to use hashtags in your content to bring potential new fans and followers to your social pages, and ultimately, your business. Go Daddy Social did some very cool research on the effective use of hashtags on Instagram and Twitter that we love. Click here to read on!