We’ve seen them all over social media. Sometimes they are all we see. People use them for various reasons, but did you know that they could help boost your social media presence and help improve your social media traffic? Below we discuss what hashtags are, how they are important to your content, and some ways to effectively use them.

What Are Hashtags?

First of all, what in the world are they? This tiny little symbol that most people only used when selecting a prompt on a telephone switchboard has now become one of the most important symbols in all of social media. They are a way to label any kind of content on social media that people consider important. From social injustices to upcoming movies, they help create ways of finding specific topics and help bring people with common interests together. They could be considered the great unifier of the internet. 

Why are they Important to Content Creation?

You may be thinking that they are just symbols that young people use to keep up with the latest trends, but hashtags are more important than that, especially in content creation. When creating content, adding hashtags can help bring attention to topics that are important to your business. Not only that, but they can also help you track engagement with your posts and tell you what is working and what isn’t. When it comes to the all-important SEO, you better believe that hashtags can help with that too. Hashtags are the equivalent of keywords, so their use is a great way to bolster your SEO. 

How to Effectively Them

So how do you use the darn things? I’m glad you asked. One of the first things to remember is to keep them short and sweet. Nowadays, keeping things short is the way to go. It helps your customers better remember key topics. You also want to make sure that your hashtags are relevant to your topic, otherwise, they will seem out of place. Specific hashtags also make your content easier to find in the sea of blogs and posts. If you are creating content that you want your audience to engage with, hashtags are a great way to create that engagement.

Create the hashtag with engagement in mind and remind your audience to use it whenever they leave a comment. But make sure that you do not overuse hashtags in your content. Too many hashtags create the possibility of burnout and can turn your audience away. A good rule of thumb is to use 3-4 of them in the post itself. If you have to add more, consider adding additional hashtags to the first comment of your post. 

As you can see, hashtags are one of the easiest ways to garner attention to your content. Give us a call and let us help you hash out any hashtag problems.