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Are you using hashtags for your business?

We have all become familiar with hashtags in social media – that # symbol before a name or event. Hashtags are becoming popular in business as a way to market products and services in the cyber world. Consider using hashtags for your business marketing campaign.

Why Use Hashtags?

Hashtags are important to get noticed on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram  and Google+. Using hashtags is a way of categorizing your content so it can be easily discovered by people searching for that topic, according to Socialquant.net.

Tweets with hashtags can receive double the hits compared to Tweets without a hashtag. Additionally, a Tweet with a hashtag is 50 percent more likely to get retweeted than one without a hashtag.

When you start using hashtags you will quickly see an increase in your social media traffic. But, don’t overuse hashtags, warns Socialquant.net. Tweets with one to two hashtags will not see much additional engagement. A tweet with two or more hashtags can actually see a drop of 20 percent or more in engagement.

Related Article: Social Media Can Help Market Your Business

What are hashtags?

A hashtag is a word or a group of words with the # symbol in front of it. A few examples are: #hashtag, #painters, #landscaping. These first started on Internet Relay Chats and became popular on Twitter as way to draw discussions on a particular topic. Today, marketers use the hashtag as a way to engage your business or brand within your market.

There are three key marketing strategies for using hashtags, according to Wishpond.com: Brand, campaign and trending.

Brand – Create your own brand hashtag that is unique to your company. You can make it your company name or a tagline that people know – or will know – about your business. This should be your central business tag that you and your customers can use anytime on any social site. Keep the hashtag short and if you have a common company name, create a unique hashtag name.

Campaign – For a campaign hashtag create a name of your current marketing campaign. It can be a phrase or a word unique to a promotion or contest. Again, try to create a unique tag.

Related Article: Creating Effective Online Advertising

Trending – These tags are about something popular that is currently being talked about. Use this if you see a trend in your particular business as a way to be seen by a huge social media audience. Only Google+ and Twitter have trending topics but generally Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram will pick them up.

Content – These tags are for services, products, events and location. These improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your posts for people searching for a particular product or service.

Expand Your Reach

Using hashtags for your business will expand your reach, target your market and most importantly, get you noticed.