Hashtags: Grouping Content to Increase Brand Awareness

We all hear about the power of hashtags, and we’re seeing them all over social media. It turns any word or group of words that directly follow it into a searchable link. The best way to think about hashtags is that they’re a grouping mechanism. Let’s say I post a blog, identify a keyword phrase, content marketing, and include a hashtag, #content marketing. Anyone who keys #contentmarketing into a search field is now more likely to pull up my blog. If you understand the purpose of hashtags and learn how to use them, they become a powerful tool that will help you reach and engage your target audience and increase brand awareness.

Using hashtags in your social media posts makes them visible to basically anyone who shares your interest. No longer are your posts limited to just your followers; your content now becomes accessible to all other users who are interested in similar topics. Choosing good hashtags can significantly broaden the reach of your social media posts.

Creating an Effective Hashtag

Hashtags can appear anywhere in your posts: front, middle or end. Positioning isn’t as important as their relevance and judicious application. Users are turned off by a post that’s cluttered with excessive or lengthy hashtags, e.g. #thisLongHashtagIsSoPointless. Brevity is critical on social media so a short, declarative post with a few well-chosen hashtags should be your goal.

Limiting the number of hashtags

In general, keep your hashtags to two-three on Twitter; Instagram’s ideal number of hashtags is five. Use hashtags on Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest. An article about hashtags on Facebook showed that engagement fell off significantly as the number of hashtags grew.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• A hashtag must be written as a single word, without any spaces
• You can include numbers in a hashtag, but punctuation and special characters ($ and %) won’t work
• Search for a hashtag using the search bar at the top of any browser window–it’s a searchable link
• Add context. A message, link, message or call to action
• Stay relevant. Don’t use a trending hashtag to draw users—even though it has nothing to do with your post. It happens.
• If you’re just getting started, use hashtags that directly relate to your brand, product or service until you’re comfortable with their use. Start noticing how others are using hashtags creatively and effectively.

Are you thinking about outsourcing part or all of your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts. 

Happy 10th, Twitter

Twitter celebrated its 10th birthday on March 21. Happy 10th, Twitter! That’s 10 years of hashtags, re-tweets and favoriting. The platform’s come a long way over the past decade, evolving from a simple text-message based application into an integral part of the wider communications landscape; its real-time stream is now a part of breaking news stories around the world, and it plays an important role in the way we connect and communicate.

Many industries have come to rely on Twitter for real-time data newsfeeds and lively story ideas. As newspaper and magazine circulation has fallen and staffs have been cut back, journalists believe they’d no longer be able to function without social media, and Twitter is the most popular platform. Anyone who follows sports knows that athletes these days are all on social media. These are guys with big egos, and they love to tweet, so our favorite sportscasters have followed them onto this platform. It’s fodder for endless stories about their outrageous antics and opinions.

International incidents meet critical mass

It’s been just a few days since the horror of the Brussels terrorist bombing, a few months since 130 people died in a similar atrocity in Paris. Images and videos quickly went viral, sharing the horror of yet more innocent people dying at the hands of ISIS. Twitter has become a powerful medium with the ability to quickly disseminate these stories of terrorism around the world.

Understanding the power of Twitter

The numbers are impressive.

• When Caitlyn Jennings used Twitter to announce her transformation, it took just over 4 hours to reach 1M people.
• During the World Cup Final, there were nearly 620K Tweets every single minute.
• Sadly, Justin Bieber is the most mentioned person, at 943M Tweets
• More than 27M Tweets were sent about the Boston Marathon bombing
• Nelson Mandela’s death: 95K Tweets/minute

Yet Twitter has its detractors, including me

I’m a writer. I have a masters degree and have spent years honing a skill. This platform has devalued the art of communication into 140-character sound bites. For those who were already bad writers, Twitter celebrates mediocrity. While many people are using Twitter creatively and well for their businesses, the majority of what hits my inbox is drivel—some nearly impossible to decipher with their combinations of hashtags, symbols and abbreviations.

I just checked my Twitter account

I’ve been posting to Twitter for a few years now, not really paying much attention—I’m interested in it its SEO value. I have 644 Tweets, 875 followers, and I’m following nearly 1,300 people. Amazing. I never do anything to get more followers—people follow me or Re-Tweet my Tweets, which is nice, thank you. Sometimes I look at these people and they’re from Germany, the UK or Asia. Sometimes they respond in languages that I can’t identify. Their responses can be “father, coffee drinker, social media fan”. So what? A lot of these people call themselves writers/authors. Generally in some dark genre of self-publishing hell. These people are just so silly that I can’t ever take this medium seriously.

I understand the power of Twitter . . .

Intellectually, I understand the power of Twitter, but I don’t really consider it a serious medium for me. As a solopreneur who advises many other solopreneurs and small businesses about their marketing, it’s necessary to make choices about how we spend our marketing dollars—and that includes our time. To make social media really work for us, it takes a concerted effort and considerable time. It’s like a 12-step program—it works if you work it. I believe there are better ways to be spending your valuable resources than focusing on Twitter.

Are you struggling with your content marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.