It’s been a little over a decade since hashtags first made an appearance on social media. Although it took a few years, they slowly gained in popularity and use. Today they can be found virtually everywhere.
Even so, not everyone uses hashtags to their full potential. They look kind of cool when you use them, but looking cool isn’t their only purpose. In fact, you can use them to grow your business.
Understand Hashtags
In order to use hashtags to grow your business it helps if you first understand what they are. They are an identifying phrase or word with a pound sign (#) in front of them.
As an example, a hashtag for this post might be #growyourbusiness. Using that hashtag, other people wishing to have more success with their business can find this information.
Why Use Hashtags
But should businesses, or anyone else for that matter, use hashtags? To put it simply, it can help to promote your business and make it more searchable.
When other people are looking for information about your company they can use a hashtag as an index to look it up. It helps your business increase social media presence which, in turn, spells more customers, new customers, and more sales.
Of course, more sales equals more profits. Therefore, it stands to reason that if hashtags can help your business you should probably be using them.
How to Create Hashtags
You can use hashtags in social media posts to draw more business. Keeping it short, sweet, and to the point will help as you label. Here are some tips to help:
Don’t Use Spaces
Using spaces in your hashtags isn’t necessary. To break up words you can use capital letters, so #growyourbusiness instead becomes “GrowYourBusiness.
Numbers Are Ok
If you want to use numbers in a hashtag you can, just run it altogether along with the rest of the word or phrase. For instance, the phrase #twokids might become #2kids instead.
No Punctuation
Adding other characters to your hashtag won’t work. So, no exclamation points, quote marks, hyphens, parenthesis, or other characters should be used.
Limit How Many You Use
So, if hashtags are good and help your business, you should use a ton of them, right? Wrong. Overusing hashtags won’t help. It’s generally best to limit hashtag use to just two or three for the topic you are trying to promote.
Use Then Anywhere
You can use hashtags anywhere in your social media or promotional posts. Use them at the beginning followed by a sentence or two. Alternatively, you could use them in the middle of a sentence. Placing them at the end of a phrase is ok too.
Uses for Hashtags
As mentioned above, they help to promote your business. But they can be used in different ways to do that.
Location
Sometimes a hashtag could be used to distinguish that your business is in a certain area. Let’s say you have businesses in Dallas, Boston, and San Diego. You could tag your city to increase exposure: #Dallas #Boston #SanDiego.
People in those areas searching for your business can use those tags to find you.
Trends
Hashtags can be used for identifying trends also. Let’s say you own a successful restaurant but you are adding a taco truck to increase business. You might post about it in social media using one like, #TacoTruck, to build public awareness of your addition.
It seems clear that hashtags are here to stay when it comes to social media. But if you aren’t using them yet, you should get started to help you grow your business.
