When hashtags were first used by Twitter, their sole purpose is to be a grouping functionality for content to be filtered. It made it easier for people to find and follow a post or conversation. By today, hashtags are being used on multiple social media platforms as a marketing tool and branding and not just for filtering purposes only.

Hashtags Basics

A hashtag is a word or phrase with a hash (# hash sign) in front of it. To create a hashtag, you spell out the phrase or keyword (it can include numbers but not symbols) without any spaces, for example, #Mappdommarketing.

The post with a hashtag is used on social media to attract attention and encourage engagement towards your post or comment, and it allows the post to be indexed by the social media platform. So that even viewers that aren’t your fans or followers of your page or account can still be able to find and view your post or content. It created a new trend for marketing and branding strategies for posting content online and become beneficial for promotional purposes.

Benefits of using hashtags

There are many reasons for using hashtags in order to boost your social media marketing but I will be giving you the top 2 benefits that are actually helpful for your marketing strategy.

1. 1. The number one benefit is it helps your brand get found easily by your target viewers. A lot of people nowadays do their research by searching with the use of specific hashtags and since the hashtag’s purpose is indexing and categorizing specific categories or content, it will be easier for them to discover your brand online.

TIP: Use hashtags that are on-trend and that is in line with the interest of your target viewers, this increases the chances of getting discovered.

1. 2. Second, hashtags build and boost your engagement and clickthrough rates by your target viewers. According to research, posts with hashtags get twice more engagement than those without. It also shows 50% more chances of your post being retweeted or shared with others. Be sure to incorporate more than one hashtag on your post or content for a high chance of discoverability.

TIP: To make the most of incorporating hashtags for your promotional use, make sure that you use well branded and good marketing keywords to put for your hashtags on your posts.

This may be simple enough but sometimes when something is simple people tend to overthink it, that is why it is important for marketers to have a goal of using hashtags for their marketing and promotional postings. This would actually help you pinpoint the best keywords to use for your hashtags. Below are the 6 types of hashtags for marketing, to show you how brands incorporate hashtags that would benefit and increase their brand awareness.

6 Types of Hashtags for Marketing

1. Branded Hashtags

The first type of hashtag that every marketer should know is one of the most basic of hashtag marketing is creating their own branded hashtag. It can be short and memorable and usually, the brand name is included in some way. If you haven’t figured out an idea for a hashtag for your brand, do some research on what’s the best keywords that would best describe or identify with your brand. Sometimes your customers or target audience might be already using some keywords or phrases that would be the best use as a branded hashtag without your knowledge.

This type of marketing hashtag can be used on an ongoing basis. This is something that you can always put in your posting content.

2. Community Hashtags

This is often used by large companies or brands to engage their consumer base and is somewhat similar to branded hashtags. This type of marketing hashtag will still include the brand’s name in some way and incorporates a community or lifestyle trend to mix in such as “community” or “my(brand name)”.

This strategy has a lot of benefits, the most important is the engagement of consumers towards the brand. By letting the consumers use the community hashtag on a photo that showcases the brand or services and selecting the best one to feature. Consumers will get the feeling of being a part of a large community and use the hashtag to find like-minded members to engage with.

Marketers can also use this type of hashtag to find user-generated content easily and add authenticity to its feed or page. And lastly, this can also be used as brand awareness, as your target consumers spread and adopt the hashtag to their own posts.

3. Campaign Hashtags

This type of marketing hashtag is created as a part of a marketing campaign, which is usually in the form of an online or social media contest. Its hashtag is being used specifically to track contest entries and measure its engagement around the marketing campaign. This type of hashtag marketing gets a high volume of engagement but in just a short time since this has a start and end date.

In creating this type of hashtag, aside from the brand name, it’s important to include the campaign tagline or slogan as well.

4. Event Hashtags

Similar to campaign hashtags, this type of marketing hashtag does create a huge engagement but in a short time due to its start and end date. If it’s an annual type event, the same hashtag can be used although it’s recommended to update the hashtag to go within the trend and market of the present year.

Marketers would use event hashtags to create and instigate a conversation about the event. This is used before the brand’s event would start as a strategy in promoting the event and even after the event is done to follow-up posts and share pictures and activities of the event and encourage the attendees to share and post as well.

5. Holiday Hashtags

One of the most popular marketing hashtags being used by every brand or marketer is holiday hashtags, as you can always plan this ahead of time on your marketing posting calendar or schedule. There are certain holidays that do use their own hashtags for example – “#nationalcheesesteakday” or “4thofjuly and when it is used correctly it can be a good opportunity for your brand to utilize it and get discovered in search results

Just make sure that you do not force a hashtag for every single holiday that comes up, it must still be related to your brand and content. If your brand does not look like it has any connection to a specific holiday don’t force it in your posting or feed just so you can capitalize on that holiday.

6. Trending Hashtags

This is another popular type of strategy of marketing hashtags by jumping to the bandwagon of trending hashtag topics or content. Although viral content can be fast, short, and unpredictable, it is definitely an advantage for your brand if you can time your trending hashtag strategy perfectly, the brand exposure and awareness can be huge.

The downside of this type of hashtag is that it moves fast, so as a marketer you must be attentive to the trends and conversations happening in the present. When something viral comes up you must be quick to strategize a good marketing hashtag that would connect it to your brand. It is a big risk, so make sure that you understand and know the trending content well before utilizing it for your marketing hashtag.

Creating and using hashtags can have a huge advantage for your social media marketing and can make a big difference, especially when it is done right. To get you started on the right path here are hashtag marketing strategies and tips for you to consider.

• Hashtags should be short and memorable. Don’t try to use a lot of words in just one tag.
• Don’t overdo the use of hashtags within your post. A minimum of 2 hashtags has more impact than a lot of hashtags.
• Strategize your hashtags carefully, make sure that the keywords or phrases you use are actually what your target audience is searching for.
• Being detailed and specific, it will lead to better results than using general and broad keywords.
• Lastly, use hashtags when necessary and creates value for your post that attract and engage conversation.

Hashtags are a great marketing tool for communicating with your followers and increasing engagement to attract a new audience to your page. A successful hashtag strategy starts by knowing your audience and learning what will work on each social media platform.

It takes some time to really master the best practices in creating your hashtags for marketing purposes, strategizing, and planning out your hashtag marketing is worth the time to learn.

Research Tools for Finding Hashtags

There are tools that can help you find and identify effective hashtags depending on your target audience.

• RiteTag – this tool offers instant suggestions for hashtags in real-time engagement.
• Hashtagify.me – this tool allows you to search for popular and trending hashtags.

It’s good to do a search of keywords that relates to your content or post on social media platforms to see what hashtags show up.