How do you craft your hashtag in 2021?

 

How do you craft your hashtag? How much or how little do you know about hashtags?  

Who would have thought that a simple proposal of Chris Messina in 2007 on using the hashtag (formerly known as the pound sign or the number sign) will be one of the most important determining factors for audience reach and account growth across social media platforms today? Because of its popularity, you can hardly see a single post without hashtags in it. Aside from companies, hashtags are generally used by millennials, Gen. Z, bloggers, influencers, digital marketers, politicians, celebrities, oh well, everybody does so it seems. But how much do you know about hashtags? Do you use it just for the sake of using it because everybody does? Or do you use hashtags to reach a wider audience? To be famous! No matter what it is, I am sure you are thinking about it before hitting the post button, like how many hashtags you will use, or what specific words you will add after that number sign, relate?

How do you find the right hashtag?

To maximize the potential of your post and ensure that you will reach your target audience, use the right hashtag/s. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Major learnings come from trial and error. First, find 10-15 hashtags that you can mix and match based on the following three categories, and let us see where it leads your post:

Category 1 - YOU

• Your Title ex. #socialmediamanager

• Your Identity ex. #freelancer

• Your Passion ex. #sixfigureincome

• Your Focus ex. #organicgrowth

• Your Aspiration ex. #digitalnomad

• Your Values ex. #cleancompetition

• Your Angle ex. #parallelgrowth

Category 2 - YOUR CLIENT

• Their Title ex. #ladyboss

• Their Identity ex. #papabear

• Their Passion ex. #growth

• Their Focus ex. #organicproducts

• Their Skills ex. #socialmediamarketing

• Their Inspiration ex. #wellness

• Their Transformation ex. #zerotohero

• Their Priorities ex. #unlimitedearning

Category 3 - “HOW TOs” AND THE OUTCOME

• Showcase the BTS (behind the scene) ex. #workfromhome

• What service do you offer? ex. #lovecoaching

• What product do you offer? ex. #ayurvedicmedicine

• What can your audience learn from you? ex. #freemasterclass

  What are the struggles and needs?

• What problems your client is struggling with that you can resolve? ex. #audiencereach

• What will you bring your client in return? ex. #growyourbusiness

 

HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE YOUR HASHTAG?

The key to every post is relevance. For your hashtag to reach its maximum potential, use it in the right post. Learn how to organize your hashtag based on three categories namely Content Pillar, Post Type, and hashtag competitiveness (or difficulty).

 

CONTENT PILLAR - If you are running a specific content strategy, your hashtag should also go along with the content to remain relevant. You may experience overlapping hashtags based on the three categories we discussed earlier, but it is always better to avoid them.

POST TYPE - as mentioned earlier, relevance is always the key to a successful post-hashtag combination. In Instagram, it is said that the algorithm can scan not only the image (and the alt text that comes with it) but also the caption and hashtag, if the three are not consistent, the algorithm may think that you are spamming which may result to being banned (meaning your post will not appear on explore pages or hashtag feeds). And although it is still being debated, many experts believe that maximizing the 30 hashtags is unnecessary, instead 9-15 relevant hashtags can do the trick.

HASHTAG COMPETITIVENESS / DIFFICULTY - ideally, you want your post to be on the top of the SERP, right? Boohooo, who doesn’t? If you are organizing your hashtag, you must choose the ones under 1k, 2k, 5k, or 10k otherwise, your post will drown and will never see the light of day (hahaha, overdramatic don’t you think?), but seriously if you choose the hashtag with over 1M post, do you think your post will have a fighting chance to make it to the top? NO! I am not discouraging you, just being realistic.

Relevance, relevance, relevance! Always stay relevant. Use a specific hashtag that is relevant to your post.  

TIPS

1. Use variety! Reshuffle your hashtag within your content or content strategy, avoid using the same set of hashtags to all your posts. That can be a red flag for spamming, remember?

2. Recycle high-performing hashtags. How do you know which one is high performing? After 24 hours of your post, see how your post is performing, compare the performance with the rest of your posts to find out which is the high-performing one.  

3. Avoid using dead hashtags! What are dead hashtags? The dead hashtag is, when the top posts are over a month old posts, if you use dead hashtags, they may kill your post too. Choose the latest and updated ones. 

Rules of Hashtag

Be familiar with your insights and analytics, they are your best friends. Likes and comments. Although it is good to see these numbers go up, they are just vanity metrics. Concentrate on your shares and saves. Share is the key to virality. 

Always monitor the impressions - how many unique accounts have you reached? If the source is the hashtag, it means your strategy is working and you can continue doing the strategy, if not, you can start with the new strategy. 

Conclusion

Truth be told, no one can put a finger on how hashtag works, even the experts have contradicting opinions about its use. We can always experiment, monitor its performance, and strategize, but it is but the algorithm alone is having the “say” about the ranking. Keep hash-tagging, but stay relevant.  

 

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