Do you Fully Understand the Basics of Facebook Hashtags?
Filed Under Social Marketing
Recently, Facebook opted to make hashtags functional for users. Many people have been including hashtags in their posts for a long time, in spite of the fact that they were useless. Now, hashtags have the same type of functionality on Facebook as they do on Twitter.
A lot of users are still unsure of how to use hashtags in their posts properly. Here is an overview of how to implement the hashtag and get the most benefit from it through your social media posts.
The Origin of Hashtags
So many social media users believe that Twitter is where the hashtag originated. Actually, the hashtag made its appearance in the 1990s with Internet Relay Chats (IRCs). The hashtag that we know today was made popular by Twitter where it is used to classify phrases.
Because of its popularity on Twitter, the hashtag pops up on many social media sites, even those that do not offer that sort of functionality. This has led some sites to start making the hashtag more functional for users.
Using a Hashtag
You’ve probably seen many (too many!) posts like this: #cats, #funnypictures, #hilarious, #LOL, and #pleaselikeme. Too many users get a little hashtag happy when they use them in their posts. This is an abuse of the hashtag called hash-jacking and serves no purpose. All you will manage to do is get a few eye rolls as people scroll right past your posts.
The proper way to use a hashtag in your post is to choose ones that are relevant to your post and you want to put a limit on how many you use. For instance, if you are posting gardening tips, you can use #gardening or #gardentips. Keep it simple. You want your posts to look clean and professional if you want to reach your target audience.
Best Use of Facebook Hashtags
The new changes to Facebook’s algorithm can make it difficult to be visible to many users on the social network. The ability to use functional hashtags on Facebook makes it possible for you to reach a wider, targeted audience. Using the hashtag strategically can help you show up in results when users conduct a search for topics you post about.
Users can do a search either by entering it into the search bar or by clicking on a hashtag in a user post. They will be shown all the results that share the same hashtag, meaning your content will be included. The more popular the tag is, though, the less time your post will be immediately findable by users because there will be so many others being added every hour.
This is why you need to choose strategically. If you can’t avoid using a general hashtag term (social media, cooking, etc.) then make sure you also include one or two more specific tags that will help to narrow the search results. This will give you a more targeted result.
You can also create hashtags for product launches, special events, promotions, or contests that you have coming up. These unique tags give you a clearer picture of who is sharing your upcoming events through their own posts when they use those same unique tags.
Are you using Facebook hashtags? What benefits are you seeing?
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Dawn Pigoni, IVAA Member
