How Should Social Media Hashtag Usage Be?

What is a Hashtag?

Nowadays, the usage of words is also changing with the development of technology. It is not easy to find the answer to the question “What is this word?”, no matter how much the changing words are used in our lives in the digitalizing world. For example, “Hashtag” is a frequently used word that we cannot give a clear answer to the question “What is it?”. The hashtag is called the “Title Tag” when translated. In the simplest way of expression, we can say that it is the name used to promote a product. However, this definition is not very sufficient. Hashtag is the name given to the use of words with the “#” symbol at the beginning on social media platforms. The most used hashtags today are as follows:

• #love
• #instagram
• #photooftheday

The word hashtag has been used all over the world since 2007, and it began to appear in the Oxford dictionary in 2014.

What Are the Rules to Be Considered When Using Hashtags?

Hashtags were first used on Twitter. Today, it is also used on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Hashtags are used to make brands or services more visible. However, there are rules to consider when using hashtags. These rules are as follows:

• It should be noted that the use of hashtags varies by platform to platform. We should aim to increase the conversion rate of the shared content by researching the hashtag rules of social media platforms.
• In order for the content to reach the target audience, it is necessary to make a strategic choice between a hashtag with a lot of share amount and a hashtag with less share amount.
  To reach your target audience on Instagram, you can review A Comprehensive Guide to Target Your Instagram Audience.
• Please note that when you use unnecessary and unrelated hashtags, your post will not appear in these hashtags.
• Hashtags should be created with short and meaningful word groups.
• It is necessary not to describe all the content with hashtags.

How to Determine an Effective Hashtag Strategy?

Hashtags are classified according to the content shared. Therefore, it is possible for the searcher to access your content directly. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the hashtag strategy well. The following points should be considered when determining a hashtag strategy:

• When choosing hashtags, it is necessary to determine the current and trending topics.
• In order to be visible in hashtags – to be successful in hashtag selection in other words – the likes and the places where the tendency of the target audience to follow are high should be analyzed well.
• Determining hashtags on current topics will positively affect the conversion rate of the content.
• The harmony between the hashtag and the image that is used supports your posts to be more visible.
• Using special day hashtags in your special day posts on your account can make you more visible.

How to Use Hashtags in Instagram Contents?

Mainly, Instagram hashtags are directly associated with photos and videos. Instagram allows the use of 30 hashtags. However, the use of 30 meaningless hashtags will not highlight your content.

• Instagram hashtags are different from the hashtags used on other social media platforms.
• The social media platform that allows usage of hashtags the most is Instagram.
• Content shared on Instagram gets 12.6% more engagement if shared with hashtags.
• The shared content may fall into spam, If hashtags unrelated to the content are used.
• If you have a target audience in Turkey, you should be careful about creating hashtags with Turkish characters.
• Using 10-15 of the 30 hashtag limits will be healthier for your content.

Optimizing your account is as important as using hashtags on Instagram. How to do social media optimization? You can browse our content.

How to Use Hashtags in Facebook Content?

We need to be careful not to use excessive hashtags in Facebook content. It is recommended to use one or two hashtags specific to this platform. Using more of these hashtags will not make your work look professional. It is recommended to pay attention to the following points when choosing hashtags for Facebook content:

• Hashtags added to the content do not affect the engagement rate.
• People have private profiles on Facebook. Therefore, the shared content reaches a limited number of people. If you want to get interaction through hashtags, you need to make your posts “public”.
• We can say that hashtags created with more than 10 letter characters gain better interaction.

How to Use Hashtags in Twitter Content?

The origin of hashtags is known as Twitter. Twitter is limited to 280 letter characters. Users use hashtags to enter the Trend Topic (TT) list and be visible. There are some points to consider when using hashtags on Twitter. These points are as follows:

• It is necessary to pay attention to not use more than two hashtags at the same time while tweeting. Using more than two hashtags will negatively affect your engagement.
• According to studies, with a single hashtag  90 interactions are received, while the number of interactions with 11 hashtags drops below 10.
• To be able to have more interaction with hashtags, the account must be public.

How to Use Hashtags in YouTube Content?

YouTube has become the most visited social media platform ever since viewership rates soared over reading rates. That’s why it’s important to be visible here. Hashtags can help you become visible on the YouTube social media platform. At this point, you should pay attention to the following tricks:

• The most effective use of hashtags is in the comments section.
• Users can leave hashtags in the comments.
• Every user who clicks on the hashtag can access the video with it.
• The use of hashtags is not as effective on YouTube as in other platforms. Therefore, creating content with the focus keywords can be important for the content to stand out.

In this article, we took a look at many topics related to the use of hashtags. But it should not be forgotten that social media is a medium in which the trends are changing so fast. Missing these changes can have bad consequences for your brand and personal profile.

In order not to miss the trends and to follow all the updates closely, we invite you to our Digipeak social media accounts where we share the current news. You can also benefit from our social media management service by contacting us to learn more about how to gain more visibility as a brand on your social media accounts.

You can review our other articles on Social Media below:

• Keeping Up with the Speed of Social Media Trends
• 4 Advantages of Using Social Media for Dental Clinics