Why Hashtags are Important in Your Social Media PostsSMU SMC

Everyone has seen the prevalence of hashtags on social media these days. Every post across Twitter, Instagram and other platforms seems to employ this device. You may have wondered why hashtags are important and what value they add.

What is a Hashtag?

If you aren’t living under a rock, you probably already know what #hashtags are. Using the “pound sign,” they allow you to zero in on a particular key word or phrase. This word or phrase is then more easily searchable and easy to organize within the social media platform. Hashtags are great for promotional campaigns for organizations because they increase social engagement. The use of hashtags is simple, but can have great impact on your brand recognition if it is used correctly.

Why Hashtags are Important for Searching

Hashtags are important because they allow another level of searching potential. It’s a great idea to use hashtags with key words and phrases in your social media, especially Twitter and Instagram. These key words, when used with a hashtag, are then easier to search. Users can find your content by following the appropriate hashtag. Twitter, for example, allows you to click a hashtag, which opens up a list of all tweets that use the same hashtag. As long as it’s relevant to the message, using trending hashtags can significantly increase attention to your post. Please don’t overuse hashtags, though. Nothing looks tackier than a sentence where every other word is preceded by a hashtag.

Why Hashtags are Important for Promotions

When hosting an event, pushing a new product or running a contest, the hashtag can be a great tool to encourage social engagement. The benefit of using hashtags is it allows users to view what others are saying about your launch, contest, event, etc. People love to share their own opinions and see if others share that opinion. Instagram often has promotions revolved around hashtags because companies love it when you tag them or their promotion on your profile. This increases traffic to their content because all your friends now see that promotion and can follow it by clicking on the hashtag. For such events, it’s best to create unique hashtags, not hashtags that are very general and may be used with a bunch of unrelated content.

Thanks for reading about the importance of hashtags in social media. Please comment your thoughts below. Here are some additional sources to help you:

What You Need to Know About Hashtags on Pinterest – ViralWoot

Tips From 13 Experts on Using Hashtags on Facebook – PostPlanner

The Twitter Hashtag: What it is and How Do You Use it – Tech for Luddites