Hashtags and When To Use Them

Hashtags have been around for a while now. They are used on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also use them on your website.
 
The # symbol goes in front of a word or words, to group posts about the same topic.
 
Did you know that this also started on August 23, 2007, with a tweet by San Francisco techie and former Google developer Chris Messina.

He posted the first hashtag on Twitter:
How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups? As in #barcamp [msg]?
— Chris Messina, ("factoryjoe"), August 23, 2007.
 
Messina’s suggestion to use the hashtag was not adopted by Twitter, but the practice took off after hashtags were widely used in tweets relating to the 2007 San Diego forest fires in Southern California.

So how should your business be using them today?
 
How do I use them?
 
Search it! You can use hashtags to search for a topic you might like to post about, or to see what people are saying. This works across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
 
Start a trend. You can use hashtags to create a thread of conversation or trend that you think might catch on.
 
To promote your products. Create a hashtag for your products and use it every time you mention that product/service.
 
Connect with potential customers, brand advocates and influencers. It’s a great way of joining, or even starting discussions with influencers and industry experts to raise the profile of your business and build valuable connections.
 
Top tip: please don’t use more than 3 hashtags! Posts with more than three hashtags are proven not to have any more engagement and in fact this often leads to a decline in engagement.
 
Note: In China, microblogs Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo use a double-hashtag #HashName# format, since the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag.