To reiterate what we discussed, hashtags help to categories conversation threads. This means that when you search for a hashtag or click on the hashtag, all the posts containing this hashtag will appear. Let’s see how it works on different social media platforms:
Hashtags first started on Twitter and is used extensively. Did you know that inserting hashtags in your tweets increases its chances of getting indexed by Google? Including hashtags in tweets can increase engagement by two times more than those without! These hashtags will then work as keywords which will expose your tweets to a wider audience. Don’t forget that there is a 140 character count so you might not want to include too many hashtags in a tweet!
You can also try searching for hashtags on Twitter to look for tweets related to it. For example, we searched for #digitalmarketing and this is what we got:
Your search results will be listed according to these options as seen above. You can view top tweets or latest tweets that include #digitalmarketing. Or you can find user accounts whose names relate to digital marketing. What’s more, you can sieve out tweets which include the hashtag, but only those with photos or videos in them. Clicking on ‘More options’ will also give you more filter options for you to choose from. You can even choose ‘Advanced Search’ to refine your search results!
The Trends column is another interesting feature on Twitter. Here’s an example:
As you can see, the Trends section shows you topics that are trending and the number of tweets that include those topics. You can even change the settings to show worldwide trends, or any particular part of the world! This column helps you to stay relevant with what people are talking about, and perhaps take the chance to engage your followers and gain visibility for your company when related hashtags are trending.
Hashtags are widely used on Instagram. It basically works the same way as it does for your tweets. When posting a photo on Instagram, for example about food, you can simply include a caption and then insert related hashtags like #foodstagram, #foodporn, #eathealthy, #foodgasm, #nomnom, #foodie and so much more! Instagram posts with 11 or more hashtags have proven to have the highest interaction.
However, do note that there is a limit of 30 hashtags for each Instagram post! In addition, having too many hashtags in a post might seem annoying to others, especially if the hashtags take up more space than the actual caption.
The search function on Instagram works similar to that on Twitter. So we searched for #ootd and this is what we got:
Unlike searching on Twitter, you don’t get to filter much of your search results. As seen in the screenshot above, it shows you the total number of posts that include the hashtag and different variations of them which include emoticons behind the hashtags. You can also view top posts or all the posts that include #ootd, or find account names and locations with ‘ootd’ in their names as well.
Facebook only incorporated support for hashtags in 2013. While hashtags work the same way on Facebook as it does for both Twitter and Instagram, its effectiveness is questionable. Unlike that on Instagram, adding too much hashtags on Facebook leads to fewer interactions. In fact, posts without hashtags tend to outperform those with hashtags.
And as expected, you can also search for hashtags on Facebook.
Just like on the other platforms, you can view top Facebook posts with the relevant hashtag, find the latest posts, and more. The screenshot above shows you different options for you to choose from to view posts related to the hashtag. Facebook also shows you your search results based on factors like your location, posts you’ve liked, and also people you are friends with.
Finally, we’ve come to the end of this two part series on hashtags. We hope that you’ve learnt all, if not most, that you needed to know about hashtags. Now you can go have fun playing around with hashtags and get the ball rolling!