- By Camila Ante
Hashtags are a powerful method to increase engagement, build your brand, and find your audience. However, if you are using the wrong hashtags, they will have no impact on your social media posts.
To help you in this part, here are five ways you can find the correct hashtags for your brand.
1. Pay attention to influencers
Influencers that belong to your brand's niche can give you an idea about the hashtags that work best.
And it's pretty simple: check the social media posts of these influencers and take note of the hashtags they use most often.
To further simplify the process, you can use a tool like Hashtagify.me. This tool allows you to search for different keywords on Twitter and Instagram and discover the main influencers who use these specific keywords.
For example, if you search for the term "health", this tool will search through all the hashtags on Instagram and Twitter to find the influencer who uses this hashtag with the greatest interference (in this case, it is El Universal)
(Taken from: Hashtagify.me)
This can give you a good idea of what the people in your niche are doing - and where you can improve to optimize your use of hashtags.
2. Look at the trends constantly
A thorough scan of your entire niche can also guide you as to which hashtags you should be using. Anytime there's a trending topic or hashtag within your industry's social media circle, take note. You can also use that hashtag to increase the perception of your brand.
Another great tool that you can use is RiteTag.com. Every time you post on social media, this platform gives you instant hashtag suggestions based on real-time information.
(Taken from: RiteTag)
Whether it's on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, RiteTag will give you consistent suggestions on which hashtags you could use depending on your goals.
This platform also has an extension for your browser that gives you suggestions at the moment while you write your publications.
(Taken from: Ritetag)
3. Be specific
Remember: the more you narrow down your target market, the more customers you can attract.
This same idea applies to your social media posts and your hashtags. The more specific your hashtags are, the easier it will be for your audience to find you.
Try to focus on attracting a passionate community that has a common interest. The more specific you get with your hashtags, the more narrow your audience will be. A more accurate audience generally brings better interactions.
If you don't have a particular hashtag for your business, choose one or two hashtags that already exist and fit your profile.
For example, let's say your business is focused on the sale of baby products. Instead of using the hashtag # dads –which refers to dads with children of all ages– it is better to use #mamaprimeriza. This hashtag is specifically aimed at moms with newborns, your target customers.
(Take from: Instagram)
4. Use unbranded (but relevant) hashtags
Brand hashtags don't have (rather, they shouldn't) directly mention your brand name. BUT, they should represent the values of your brand.
Branded hashtags organize all posts tagged under a keyword on a hashtag page. This is very useful if you are using the hashtag to register entries for a promotion or a contest.
5. Adapt your hashtags to each social network
While hashtags serve the same purpose of discovering and categorizing content across all social media, their use varies by channel.
Hashtags on Instagram are usually focused on the description of the content. On Twitter, hashtags are more focused on a topic of conversation or a group of people (like a chat, for example) with whom you would like to interact.
Before venturing into using hashtags, research the best practices for using them on each social network. Also, take the time to research which are the most relevant and popular hashtags around a specific topic for each social network. The extra time you spend on this part will pay off later in your engagement levels.
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