July 29, 2018

How to Use Hashtags to Grow Your Business on Social Media (Tips and Best Practices for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, And YouTube)

July 29, 2018/ Andrew Macarthy

Why Hashtags Are Important For Brands on Social Media

Hashtags on social media help to group conversations, give context to your message, and crucially - because using the"#" symbol in front of a word turns it into a clickable link - hashtags can help you and your content get found by your target audience. Clicking on a hashtag will take to a person to a list of posts containing the same hashtag.

Many brands use hashtags "just because", but adding them without purpose can one can at best weaken the message of a post, or at worst turn people off your brand completely.

In this blog post, I'll guide you through everything you need to know about hashtags and how to make the most of them on all of the biggest social media platforms. Read on for hashtag best practices, and how to best integrate hashtags into your social media marketing strategy.

June 28, 2013

5 Ways Brands Can Use Hashtags on Facebook for Marketing | Facebook #Hashtags Marketing

June 28, 2013/ Andrew Macarthy

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Facebook recently introduced hashtags to its site - and about time too! - giving marketers a fascinating new tool to help try to boost engagement and interaction with their fans. Here are five ideas to help brands kick start their use of hashtags on Facebook:

1. Add your hashtag to your cover photo

One of the easiest ways to promote your hashtag to fans is to feature it in your cover photo, whether it's a hashtag that will always stay the same (such as your brand name) or one that will change over time (like one related to a seasonal promotion).

2. Search your hashtag and join the conversation

Hashtags on Facebook give you a much easier way to find out what people are saying about you and your brand. So, search for mentions of your brand's hashtag periodically and join in on the conversation to help drive engagement and strengthen relationships with your customers.

3. Use hashtags in your status updates and comments

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Facebook hashtags work as clickable links in Page posts, personal profile posts, and in comments, so don't forget to feature them in these places where appropriate. With consistent use and the odd prompting, you will educate your customers to start using your hashtags too!

4. Utilise your hashtag's unique URL to drive traffic and engagement

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Each hashtag used on Facebook has its own feed and unique URL. In the above example, the hashtag is #500socialmedia to represent my book, and the URL is http://www.facebook.com/hashtag/500socialmedia. The format always stays the same: facebook.com/hashtag/yourhashtag.

Use this knowledge to drive customers to your hashtag feed - especially in real world marketing material - to interact and engage. Utilise re-directs and URL shorteners like bit.ly to make a link to the feed more memorable.

5. Remember: #hashtags join across all Facebook-integrated services

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One of the coolest things about Facebook hashtags is that their function is maintained across Facebook-integrated services. In the example above, I shared this image from my Instagram account to my Facebook fan page. The image's caption remained in tact, and its hashtags are there and clickable too.

Conclusion

I hope this post has given you some inspiration for how you might use hashtags on Facebook as part of your own social media marketing strategy. Let me know how you intend to integrate hashtags in the comments below!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

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June 18, 2013

How to Use Hashtags on Facebook Pages for Business Marketing

June 18, 2013/ Andrew Macarthy

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Hashtags finally rolled out to Facebook

Facebook - after a long period of expectation from many quarters - has rolled out the use of hashtags in posts that appear on Pages and in the news feed. At the time of writing, hashtags will only be clickable by desktop users on the site, although Facebook hints strongly that this will extend to mobiles and ads sometime in the future.

How Hashtags work on Facebook

If you are familiar with Twitter, Google+, Instagram, or Pinterest, you'll know that hashtags are a method used to group similar types of content together, and can be created by typing a hash or pound symbol directly before a word while composing a status update on your Page, personal profile, or in of a comment, like this: "What do you love about your local #kohls?" or "It's Gap's summer sale, with up to 50% off! Come take a look... #targetsale" where "#kohls" and "#targetsale" are clickable.

On Facebook specifically, clicking a hashtag will open up a feed where you’ll see stories from the Pages and people who have posted with the same hashtag. People can use hashtags in Facebook search to ﬁnd posts related to speciﬁc topics or interests. Billions of pieces of content are shared on Facebook every day - peaking in the 8-11pm primetime slot - so hashtags provide a huge opportunity for brands and marketers to participate in conversations in a meaningful, relevant and timely way.

Tips for Using hashtags for business on Facebook

Use hashtags related to your brand or industry in your Facebook posts - either general ones, e.g. #beauty or ones you create that are specific to your business, e.g. #denverburgerbar

Every Facebook has its own unique URL, so think about driving traffic to that URL from other locations, e.g. your blog, other social networks, business cards, instore marketing materials, etc. to encourage conversation. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly to make the link small and memorable.

Discover new Pages and partners by searching for hashtags in Facebook search, and search your own hashtags to monitor what people are saying about you and your brand, then join the conversation.

Note: For more advice about using hashtags as effectively as possible on any social network, including the recommending formatting and amount you should use, check out the tips on hashtags in the Twitter Tips chapter of my book, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips