The Art of the Hash

Ever wonder why everyone uses hashtags and what they even do? How to use them properly?

Well for starters, it's important to know what social mediums the "hashtag" works on.

Twitter, #Facebook, #Pinterest, #Googleplus, and possibly in the future (but not right now) LinkedIn.

So, what exactly is a #hashtag? It's "#"

Alone, it does nothing.. but attach a word behind it with #NOpunctuation what-so-ever and you have a link to another community. A community that also used that exact word or phrase, and all of a sudden you're thrust into a news feed of similar posts. The hashtag is used to draw attention, organize and promote your post. Whether you're uploading a picture of your puppy and including #frenchbulldog or your beverage of choice and putting #cocacola - the hashtag has a use for every person. Whether marketing your brand, or trying to find other french bulldog lovers ;)

The hashtag was created by #Twitter, but it's use didn't stop there. You cannot use punctuation, spacing or special characters in your words or phrases. For example, #you'regreat would translate to #you since the 'regreat portion will be cut off. Instead you have to go against ALL grammatical rules and change to #youregreat (makes me cringe) or find another way to say it! 

So why use them? First off... they help you find your target audience. Using the above two examples again, if you wanted to find more profiles on instagram that also are about french bulldogs, click on your #frenchbulldog link and you will see a feed of other profiles. And it works the other way around, you're more discoverable! 

Hashtags also improve your clickthrough rate. According to research from #BuddyMedia, tweets that hashtags receive double the engagement as posts that don't! Another great way to use a hashtag is for market research, ask a question to high school professors and #highschoolprof and see who is out there! 

There is so much more into the hash tag and it's uses... we'll dive even deeper next week! And we will discuss how LinkedIn doesn't have #'s but uses a variation... 

Thanks for reading!

#CGC

#theartofthehashtag #ormondbeach #marketing