Importance of Hashtag

1. Outplay your competitors

As with any business, it’s important to figure out who your competition is, what they offer, how they advertise, so you know what makes your business the better choice. Instagram is extremely helpful because you can search the other business’ names and any hashtags that you know they use. Learning this information can help you gauge audience’s responses to your competitors’ post, giving you the knowledge of what works best and what doesn’t for your own social media marketing.

2. Awareness and brand recognition

Branding and visibility are essentially the most effective uses of hashtags on Instagram. If you’re a new business, you can utilize hashtags to expand your audience and increase brand awareness. When users search your brand, they’ll see the relevant hashtags you’re using; or when they search specific hashtags, they’ll see your branded posts in the results. This usually results in gaining new followers and potential customers.

3. Promotion

One of the main reasons hashtags have gained such a reputation on social media is because of their ability to help marketers and businesses create targeted campaigns. According to Tweet angels, “when it comes to promotion, think of hashtags as the ‘word-of-mouth’ method.” In other words, when you post about a promotion, then your followers will use that same hashtag, then their followers will use it, and so on. Hashtags create great visibility for a campaign, and help you reach your target audience by using relevant hashtags that you know your audience is already following.

4. Activism

With the entire world at our fingertips, searching about breaking news instantaneously is easy. Because of this, many political movements create a hashtag for their cause. This works basically the same as event promotion. People use the hashtag to say they’re running a fundraiser event and users share their posts before, during, and after.

How to use hashtags on Twitter

Hash-tagging on Twitter can have a major impact when it comes to your follower count by using general and non-specific hashtags. If you hashtag general words, like #creative, or events, like #TIFF, that are going on, it is more likely that your tweet will reach beyond your follower list.

How to use hashtags on Instagram

Similar to Twitter, using hashtags on Instagram can help you engage with more than just your followers. Hashtags on Instagram give “audiences an organic way to discover branded content through the topics and forums that interest them.” Engaging with a community is a good way to build a brand and Instagram hashtags allow you to engage with a specific community. Hashtags on Instagram are useful as they help other Insta users discover your profile, which can ultimately increase the likelihood of obtaining more followers.