THIS WEEK ON THE MORNING MARK:
Hashtags 2.0
Hashtags are wonderful! These combination of words, preceded by the “#” sign, can get your business in front of lots of new eyeballs and increase your followers. Who wouldn’t want that?
Yet you may be dismayed to find it’s not as easy as it sounds to carry out a hashtag strategy. If you’ve been dabbling in using hashtags, try these five easy steps to go from Hashtag 1.0 to Hashtag 2.0 in no time.
STEP ONE
Make a List of Hashtags
Make a list of every possible hashtag you can think of that might be appropriate for your small business whether you have seen it used or not. Check out your own page, your competitor’s, and industry pages for inspiration, and brainstorm a big list.
STEP TWO
Google Your List of Hashtags
Google your hashtag ideas to see if they are, in fact, current hashtags that are being used. (Be sure to note when there are similar hashtags, like #smallbizowner vs. #smallbizowners. Usually one will be a better choice than the other. Make sure you are using the best one.)
STEP THREE
Use Instagram’s Search Bar for Hashtags
Check the popularity of your hashtags by typing them into Instagram. Aim for hashtags with between 15,000 and 100,000 posts. (If there are too many associated posts, it will be too hard to get noticed. Too few, and there is no point in using it.)
STEP FOUR
Narrow Down Your Hashtags for Instagram and Other Platforms
Narrow down your list to 8 hashtags for Instagram and up to 4 choices for other platforms. These will be your platform groups. If you are lucky enough to have found more than enough, trade them out from time to time for variety.
STEP FIVE
Add Specific Hashtags That Are Relevant to Each Post
Once you have Step 4 down and are adding hashtag groups routinely to posts, start trying to add a few specific hashtags to each post. For example, if you are posting about how your company built an app for a local nonprofit, you might add a hashtag like #nonprofittech just to this particular post.
Takeaway
This is not a “one and done”. You will need to keep adding hashtags consistently to your posts and keep updating your hashtag lists anytime you find a new one that meets the criteria. Check your analytics to see if using better hashtags doesn’t get you more followers, fast!
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