The Power of The Hashtag For Small Businesses

The humble hashtag has been around for many years but why should you be using them, perhaps you are using them, or maybe you have no idea what they are.  Either way discover the power of them right here...

Discover how to record and share video on Twitter 

The Power

In the social media age the #hashtag is one of the most powerful tools around,

Instantly linking a social media post to a group of others about the same topic... and updating a group of like minded users on that topic in real time.

For small business owners, the #hashtag represents an important social media strategy. While hashtags are now used on a variety of social networks they were made famous by Twitter.

A fitting tag can help drive brand recognition, boost the reach of an advertising campaign and positivity impact customer loyalty

​The Basics

Use the #hashtag symbol (#) before a relevant keyword or phrase to categorize Tweets and help them easily show up in Twitter search

#martinburtonline

#Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet - at the beginning, middle or end.

#Hashtags will not appear in search if your account is protected or private.

​Best Practices

Don't Spam with Hashtags

Don't over tag a single Tweet. Twitter officially recommends no more than two#hashtags per tweet. Using too many hashtags devalues the strength of the hashtag and makes each additional one more meaningless than the last. It could lose you followers and permantantly cheapen your brands social media reputation.

Develop your brand under a single hashtag

Choose just one #hashtag to speak for your brand and strengthen customer awareness.

Twitter Chats

Live Q&A sessions also called Twitter chats are discussions that can be organised around a #hashtag. These sessions can be organised either on the fly or at a pre arranged time.

​Hashtags in the wild

Even though #hashtags were born online, they can generate giant amounts of buzz outside of the internet as well. Placing a #hashtags in a well trafficked public location or somewhere that will be seen on TV or in pictures can drive #hashtags use.

Be Obvious

Choose a #hashtag that is both easy to remember and crystal clear. Even though acronyms or mulit-word phrases might be more specific and make it easier to weed out false positives,complicated #hashtags often don't work as intended.

Check out the original source of the infographic here