Using Hashtags To Your Advantage

With the advent of social media, small businesses can reach a larger audience at a very little cost. They can enhance their brand, promote their products, voice their opinions, and reap benefits from existing trends.

A hashtag strategy for your small business can mean a greater opportunity to make connections, better engagement and potentially higher sales.

What is a hashtag?

Today the symbol # means much more than the pound key on your phone or an abbreviation to write the word ‘number’. It means hashtag. It is used to refer to the names of particular topics. For example #madonna is used to refer to all posts related to Madonna. If you want to search for all posts related to Madonna over Twitter, you would just need to type #madonna on Twitter’s search feed.

Hashtags are, therefore, tags created in order to categorize your posts. They start with symbol #. As an example on Twitter, if you want to target your post to all other small businesses, you could use the hashtag #smallbusiness. Now anyone who searches for smallbusiness or #smallbusiness on Twitter will be able to locate your post, even if they do not follow you.

Why should small businesses use hashtags?

The primary reason hashtags are used is to target your posts, with could actually mean targeting your customers e.g. if you are a café owner; you could use hashtags such as #hungry, #coffee, #careforcoffee, #bored etc. This way anyone who types the word ‘hungry’ or ‘#hungry’ in the search box will get to see your post. Similarly, you can gain access to people who have used this hashtag; this will be your opportunity to engage with them.

Hashtags can help you in enhancing your brand. If you use a hashtag in a particular post, anyone who searches for this particular hashtag on a social media platform will gain access to your post. This is irrespective of whether this person is following you or not. This way you will gain access to a few more followers. In order to effectively position yourself, you could create a brand hashtag for your company and consistently use it in. Kit Kat uses their brand hashtag #HaveABreak.

Use of hashtags can help you collaborate with like-minded businesses. When you use a particular hashtag, you also open the doors for partners/ potential clients who are waiting to participate in a like-minded conversation.

Sometimes hashtags can help you gain access to targeted business events or conferences in the town. Most conferences and trade shows use hashtags to attract visitors. By using and following these, you not only gain access to these events but also get to interact with people who have registered for the event or may have attended a similar event sometime earlier.

Hashtags may also support your direct marketing campaigns. You may want to run a contest on Twitter or offer some freebies on a Friday. This can be made possible and viral through the use of hashtags. You could create campaign specific hashtags. Home Depot uses the hashtag #HDGameDay to promote one of their campaigns.

You can also use hashtags to gain competitive intelligence.

Effective hashtags

Here are some things that you need to bear in mind while creating a hashtag:

The shorter the hashtag is, the catchier it looks.

The hashtag has to be specific and clear in order to attract the right audience.

Your hashtags should have the ability to engage your audience.

Do not use too many hashtags in a particular post.

Do not repeat your posts just for the sake of hashtags. Your posts should be related and add value to your readers.

Don’t create your own acronyms while using a hashtag.

Complete your research before using a particular hashtag.

Look at trending hashtags that you can use.

Use them only when relevant, because over using is considered as spam.

Do not be afraid to experiment.

Your hashtag strategy

Hashtags help in connecting your small business to the larger part of the picture. People following your hashtags will be able to view conversations related to that hashtag in the greater business world. You will also get a wider audience, better sales and a greater engagement. It is the most inexpensive method of creating awareness about your product or service.

You should create a uniform hashtag strategy even if you use multiple social media platforms. A great help site that can enable you to search for existing hashtags per topic is http://www.hashtags.org/ .

If used strategically, hashtags can be the real game changers for small businesses and serve as the podium for priceless collaboration between your business and your clients. It can help in building a stronger engagement and loyalty within your clients.

Are you ready to start using hashtags?