Hashtag Tips that Will Change Your IG Game Although social media is slowly becoming the number one marketing channel on the internet, it’s also a very crowded space. For businesses, brands, and influencers, this can be a little complicated to navigate. Making sure the content you create is being discovered by the right people is always a struggle—especially when there are thousands of brands who are perceived to be just like yours by audiences. The top questions become, “How do brands separate themselves in the growing, new marketing channel?”. While that question is pretty loaded and can depend on what type of digital platform we’re discussing, one thing about most networking platforms remain consistent—discoverability. The primary way these accounts are discovered organically is by the proper and efficient use of hashtags. Using hashtags to the best of your ability will likely ensure the right people are discovering your account. You’ll want an audience who is interested in your business and who will engage regularly which will then bring you more traffic. In order to make this happen, you have to become your own digital strategist, or of course hire an expert. Know who your target audience is. First and foremost, you’ll want to make sure you understand who your target audience is. You’ll want to make sure these are people who will find your content useful and will also invest financially into your brand. There are a few questions you should ask yourself: What am I selling? Who am I selling to? And who will benefit most from the information I share? A good way to find these people is to look at other brands, influencers, or business that sell or discuss the same things as you. Look at their following. Who is constantly liking or commenting on their posts? Did that brand use hashtags? If so, which ones did they use? By doing this, you’re able to find some of the audience members who will most likely find value in the information, product, or service you provide. Research your hashtags. The next thing you’ll want to do is research hashtags. Which one are the most common in your industry? You’ll have to be careful with this one. The key to this tip is finding ones that are commonly searched for, but not oversaturated. For example, if you’re a company that sells mattresses in your city, you’ll want to stay away from hashtags like #mattresses or #sleep. While relevant, these hashtags are way too broad and far too common. Instead, try hashtags like #CincinnatiMattresses or #findamattress. These are narrower and more likely to generate the type of traffic needed to convert to sales or participation in calls to action. Don’t use too many hashtags. It may be tempting to use as many hashtags as possible for maximum exposure. This isn’t wise. Not only does it look bad, but some digital platforms tend to view hashtag overuse as spam and limit your reach. If you’re trying to expand your audience, using too many hashtags on one post is counterproductive. A healthy number of hashtags would be anywhere from 5 to 10 depending on the networking platform. Choose your hashtags wisely. Make sure your Hashtags are the right size. Along with ensuring the proper number of hashtags, you may want to make sure you your hashtags are a practical length. Hashtags should never exceed more than two words. If you find yourself over that limit, it may be a good idea to reassess your chosen hashtag. Typically, no one is following a hashtag that long, nor are they typing it into search. Since we only get a limited number of hashtags to use, make sure they are quality ones by keeping them as concise as possible. Make sure your hashtags are useful to your target audience. Once you have an idea of the hashtags you want to use, you’ll need to assess those hashtags to make sure they line up with the audience you’re trying to reach. When trying to do this, it may be useful to go back to tip #1. Look at your audience. The people who are interested in your content will likely be the same people interested in similar content. Some platforms like Instagram allow users to follow certain hashtags. In this case you can see which hashtags users follow to determine which ones they find useful. Gather a list of relevant hashtags by seeing which hashtags members from your target audience follow. These can be added to your list of relevant hashtags. Easy! Stay away from Clickbait Hashtags. While in the process of considering hashtags and determining hashtag relevance, it may be tempting to add some hashtags that have high traffic and search value, but don’t quite relate to your content just for increased exposure. Not only does this waste your time, but it’s also annoying to users who are looking for things related to that irrelevant hashtag you posted. This could result in your posts getting flagged, or your page being blocked. After so many page blocks and flags, the platforms will begin to recognize your content as spam and possibly lower your visibility. Just don’t do it. Don’t use the same hashtags every time. Once you feel like you have a solid number of quality hashtags, you may decide that you’ll just use the same ones for each post. Try not to do this. Doing this is among the short list of things that may result in your page being registered as spam for the social media platforms. Doing this also limits your visibility. You are only opening your page to those 5-10 keyword searches each time. The best thing to do to prevent this would be to have multiple sets of hashtags that you rotate between for each post. Have a few sets of hashtags that can be used for each post in order to switch it up and diversify your content. Be creative and strategic. Keep in mind that you don’t always have to use hashtags that are commonly used. It’s quite possible that there is a search that hasn’t been placed into a hashtag yet. Feel free to add a hashtag that you may have faith in, even if there aren’t that many posts available for it. Use your own judgement based on all of our advice to add your own elements to hashtags. You may find a unique subset of audience members who are truly engaged in your content this way. Also, as a social media strategist, make sure you’re thinking strategically when utilizing and choosing your hashtags. Within the different sets of hashtags you put together, make sure each hashtag carries equal or corresponding weight to make sure your posts have the opportunity to get equal amounts of exposure. With these tips for optimizing your hashtags, you’ll definitely be on your way to increased traffic and quality engagement. Not only is having a solid digital strategy good for setting your brand up for success, it is also a major element of any sales funnel in today's digital age. Use it to the best of your ability!