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How to Use Hashtags in Promoting Your Website

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WHAT’S IN A HASHTAG?

  • Before, the pound sign is just another symbol. Now, it’s widely used in creating hashtags on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and most especially on Twitter highlighting the trending topics online.
  • The truth is that hashtags are NOT just talking about a certain topic in pop culture. A hashtag may also help you to promote your website and its content.

HOW CAN A HASHTAG BOOST YOUR WEBSITE?

  • Before we dig deeper, let us start by discussing the significance of a hashtag. In this day and age of the rampant use of social media, we can say that hashtags have helped in making posts, activities, topics more visible and more accessible to online users despite geographic differences.
  • Since a hashtag is a symbol we affix to a topic that we want to emphasize, or to a topic that we want to reach thousands or even millions of people both locally and internationally, it has been a great promotional tool for content creators to promote their websites or contents.
  • It is basically just typing a hash symbol preceding the topic of choice, and that’s basically it. When online users search for that same hashtag, or even a related topic, your content will be categorized as one of the possible choices, allowing other users to easily see your work.
  • Thus, increasing the chances for others to click on your website and read its contents. In simpler terms, it works like an online filter, which organizes posts for the convenience of the online users. Let’s admit that there are millions of content published each day whether it’s on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and etc. But there are a few pointers that we need to know before we start promoting online.

THINGS TO CONSIDER IN USING HASHTAGS

  • It is important to remember that in using a hashtag in a general sense, especially for promotional purposes, that the characters preceded by the hash symbol should not be separated by a space, there should be no spaces in between those letters or words.
  • It is also important to remember that your chosen hashtags should be related to whatever it is your publishing. Of course, it is common knowledge to use a hashtag that relates to the content that you want to promote. You cannot just use a hashtag that has nothing to do with your content because that will mislead the users. They will not trust you if they will found out that you used a popular hashtag just for promotion.
  • Also, using long hashtags can be a disadvantage because using hashtags that are way too long are not too memorable to online users. That is mainly because, it can sometimes be tiring and hard to remember long phrases so as much as you can use as little words to make it easier for the users to join in.

THE CURRENT WAY TO PROMOTE

These are only some of the most relevant things you need to know about hashtags. It’s the new way to promote your website and its contents. Hashtags help you boost your social media engagement. It also helps you promote your contents in the most modern and convenient method.

What Are Hashtags?

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A hashtag is a tag used on popular social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter,  and Instagram.

THE HASH

  • Back in the days, it’s just a number sign! Now, a hash symbol, (#), is used to highlight a particular word or phrase so that it can easily be seen by others users looking for the exact or similar content. In short, a hashtag is used to automatically classify similar posts or activities for the convenience of online users.

THE FORMAT

  • For example, you want to post a picture on Instagram and you would to highlight the the beautiful sunset in Greece, you can simply type #sunset. To recap, you need to  type the pound symbol and add the topic you want to highlight. MAKE SURE IT DOES NOT special characters like dashes, ampersands, question marks, and exclamation points. Also, hashtags do not support spaces.

Your post organized according to your chosen topic, making it easier for other users who are also searching for the same topic. That is how hashtags work, but there are still things you need to know when using hashtags.

SOME TIPS FOR YOU IN USING HASHTAGS EFFECTIVELY:

  • Starts with hash character followed by other characters.

    • Popular hashtags on Instagram include terms such as: #happy, #photooftheday, #cute, #selfie, #picoftheday
    • You can use your own hashtags aside from these generic ones.
    • A common mistake is that most users include popular hashtags in the description. In the end, their pictures are looking for attention and very unnatural. It won’t many social engagements as expected.
  • There should be a space before the #!

    • There is no space after the pound sign, BUT REMEMBER TO ADD A SPACE BEFORE THE HASHTAG. For example: It’s pourin’ rain! (space) #RainRainGoAway
  • Hashtags do NOT support letters with diacritics, special characters, spaces, and numbers only.

    • So, hashtags like #888 will not work, make sure it has words and numbers. #MTV2018 or #Grammys2018 are great hashtags for recurring events. Names like Renée Zellweger are not allowed as hashtags. You need to transform the “é” to an “e.” It would be something like this: #ReneeZellweger.
  • The wrong application of hashtags can bring about suspensions.

    • Using TOO many hashtags can lead to complications. It diverts your followers from the main point, which is your promoted content.
  • It’s NOT necessary to insert your brand in every hashtag.

    • Your followers will conclude it’s a hard selling tactic. It’s not all the time that you need to promote your business. Sometimes, you are using hashtags to ask your followers, to let them share and interact with other users. After all, that’s what social media is all about. Sharing and collaborating with each other.

Hashtags are a staple.

This article only covers the basics of what hashtags can basically do. Hashtags have become widely used in every social networking website. As you can see in Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, there are a lot of trending hashtags each day. You to use them wisely and not just used them for promotional purposes. If you put too many of them, other users might find it fishy and would doubt your authenticity. Remember to stay true to your brand at all times!

The Top 5 Social Media Platforms

social media apps

Social media apps that will boost your online presence.

We have numerous social websites available for us to choose from. So, how will you know the best social media website that fits you and your brand?

Here is the list of social media sites to help you decide:

  • FACEBOOK is one of the most popular platforms both for personal and business use. It is a good site to post photos, updates, news with the users to follow or like. Business fans visit your page to know what is new in your company and to see photos and know your events. Facebook makes use of activities to know which market needs your brand. They present social graph and their advertisements are successful too. Facebook has 1.65 billion active users.
  • TWITTER has 310 million users and to date, numbers are still adding up. This is because communicating in this platform is simple and concise. It is also a micro-blogging service which allows short messages sent and received from consumers and prospective clients. The key tool is hashtags (#). These will reach a wide audience and not just followers. This happens when users join in a conversation. Read more in this Twitter guide.
  • GOOGLE + is the social networking site of Google. It is similar to Facebook but it has a feature that can create “circles.” This will separate your followers from other different groups. This way, you can share your announcements only to the group that you prefer. This is one feature that other social media does not have.
  • YOUTUBE is a social media that can help you expand your outreach. This is done by going to Google search results. There is a total of 6 billion hours of video watched by users every single month. Make sure your video is really worth watching, otherwise, be prepared to receive negative comments. YouTube offers marketers the likelihood of promoting their product/s or clients by way of its target market.
  • PINTEREST is a distinguished platform when it comes to marketing. Post pictures that are clickable which includes a short caption. The given caption should be keyword optimized as it is how your pin will appear when visitors browse. The images should have good quality and must pop out in your feeds.
  • Linkedln presents job experience and professional views. It is an important site for business to business (B2B) people. It does not only drive traffic, but establishing through leadership, leads to prospecting, and recruiting. There are little conversations here, but you can still meet people from the same industry as yours. All you have to do is ask and some will answer. This can start a conversation which will show how expert you are in your field.

The websites above are where people are. The more people use the sites, the more you will have the chance to promote your product/s. Of course, there are other sites you can use. There are blog sites, customer view sites, location-based marketing sites, coupon sites, online photo-sharing services, and so on. Choose the site that suits your brand.