Hashtags are best described as a way for social media platforms to categorize posts. This helps the platform’s algorithm to ensure your post appears on the feeds of users who would be interested in your content. Strategically using hashtags is amongst the most effective ways to grow your reach. Hashtags will help your social media content become prioritized on pages which are most relevant to your brand.
An effective hashtag strategy will help you reach an audience of people who are genuinely interested in your product. It involves building clusters of content around a hashtag to make it easy for your target audience to find a whole cluster of the kind of content they want to see when they interact with your brand. Most hashtag strategies aim to include both popular and niche hashtags in order to have a broad as well as targetted reach.
This post provides tips for creating a brand hashtag strategy to help you effectively target the right audience for your brand and also extend your reach amongst the right categories of people. Read on for our top 7 tips:
1. Research your audience
The most essential part of any social media strategy is knowing who your target audience is. Social media is great for digital marketers due to its ability to be more targeted. Experts can analyze data easily available on all platforms and then target a specific audience which is most likely to be interested in their content.
Defining the correct audience to target can be as easy as going on your preferred social media platforms and exploring conversations and topics related to your brand or niche. Listening to conversations relevant to your brand will help you find out what your audience cares about and utilize this information to create a targetted strategy.
2. Find popular hashtags related to your brand
Hahstags which are relevant to your brand can help you reach new users who may be interested in your products. Hashtags allow platforms to group together similar content according to a specific interest or keyword. Users who then search for a hashtag will be able to see all content tagged with this specific keyword – including yours! This way, hashtags help you reach audiences who are specifically looking for the kind of content you have to offer.
Take note of the hashtags which brands in your industry are using. You can also try typing in various keywords related to your product into your preferred platforms search engine until you have a list of the most popular hashtags This way, you will ensure your content reaches those who have interests aligned with your brand.
Be careful! Don’t forget to check the hashtags you have found. Before you use a hashtag on Instagram, do some research to see who else is using it and what content others are generating around that hashtag. By looking at other posts containing the hashtags you have picked you will ensure you are using hashtags which are truly relevant to your content. Sometimes, even keywords which are related to your brand might not be the best hashtags for you.
3. Use the right number of hashtags
Hashtag marketing strategy is amongst the best ways to increase organic reach so do your research on which hashtags are performing well in your industry. You should form a strategy for what content you will create and how you will drive engagement. Pick your hashtags based on this strategy.
It’s important to use hashtags strategically instead of adding random keywords to get a large number of hashtags into a single post. Using the correct hashtags which align with your content and your target audience’s interests helps you inform the platform’s algorithm where to place you – no matter the number of hashtags. Using content specific hashtags helps you target a specific goup of people and give you a highly engaged audience.
4. Social Monitoring and Social Listening
Analysing your competitors’ profiles is also a great way to find topics and keywords for which you can use hashtags. Try to include hashtags which others in your industry are also using to make your content more relevant. Investing in social listening and monitoring tools is also a good way to determine which hashtags would be best for your brand and for each of your platforms.
5. Analyze Past Posts
A good hashtag marketing strategy comes from trial and error. Experiment and refine your selection of hashtags until you can find the ones which are producing the best results.
6. Look for hashtags relevant to your industry
It is agreed upon by almost all strategists out there that using only popular or trending hashtags is not the best way to increase your reach and engagement on social media. Brands should use a mix of both popular and niche hashtags. The goal is to ensure you feature on the most popular pages so as to reach as many people as possible but also on less competitive pages where your content is will remain visible around the top of the page for longer.
This method helps helps you reach all types of audiences ranging from broader groups to specific groups. Further, its easier to rank high on more niche hashtags where there is less competition than on highly popular ones.
7. Look for the following types of hashtags: brand and campaign specific, trending, content hashtags, and seasonal hashtags
There are 3 types of hashtags:
Branded hashtags are created to market your brand and organize your content around a specific tag.
Trending hashtags are those which are currently attracting high levels of traffic and can help you reach a massive audience. You can even use online tools like — to find out which hashtags are trending.
Content hashtags align with the subject matter of your content to catch the interest of people who are interested in topics similar to what your content deals with Time-sensitive content like those created for a calendar holiday tend to get more likes since they are highly relevant to most people at the time they are posted. Include hashtags related to holidays and events in your industry as well as for the current season, month, week, or year so as to make your content appear more relevant to people.
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