4 Tips When Choosing Your Social Media Hashtags

Do you struggle to come up with the right social media hashtags for your content? If so, you’re not alone. Many businesses struggle with hashtags, wondering how many to include with each post and which hashtags are the most relevant.

Do hashtags really help? How many should you include? How do they affect engagement?

Find the answers to those questions and discover key strategies to implement with these hashtag tips.

1. Brainstorm Words and Ideas

No matter what industry you’re in, conducting research should be the first step when creating a social media strategy and gathering hashtags. Think about keywords, phrases, and ideas that relate to your business and brand.

Take a look at your competitors and industry influencers to see which hashtags they’re using. This should give you a good idea of which hashtags work and which ones don’t.

Think about terms and phrases that will connect with your target audience to help build your brand.

2. Avoid Overused and Cliche Hashtags

Certain hashtags have been used to death, and while they’re popular, they aren’t going to help your business much. For instance, #love or #fashion have been used on billions of posts and are some of Instagram’s most popular hashtags.

While you might think popular tags are better, your content is likely to get lost in the sea of posts containing the same hashtag.

There are also certain banned hashtags you should avoid. Instagram bans certain hashtags that users have reported for inappropriate content. Many businesses use them accidentally without realizing this, so it pays to use a hashtag checker and tracking tool.

Create and choose relevant and creative hashtags instead. 

3. Use a Hashtag Aggregator

When you use a hashtag aggregator, it lets you find the most relevant content for a hashtag across all social media platforms. It curates this content into a feed you can put on your website.

This is great for marketers as it can cut down on the time it takes to search for content. You can easily find information and compile snippets of useful information with your audience to keep engagement up.

4. Use the Right Number of Social Media Hashtags

You know the importance of hashtags, but is there such a thing as using too many? As it turns out, it’s true that using too many social media hashtags on one post can backfire.

Let’s look at Twitter as an example.

Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement compared to tweets without. However, the ones you use and the number of hashtags matter, and more isn’t necessarily better.

Twitter recommends no more than two hashtags on a Tweet. Too many hashtags on a post can look unnatural and distract from your content, which can lower engagement.

Boost Engagement and Reach With Hashtags

Social media hashtags don’t have to be complicated if you use these tips. Remember to do your research, keep an eye on which hashtags are doing well, and adjust your strategy as necessary.

Are you looking for help with your social media marketing? See what we can do for your business and take your marketing to the next level.