7 March 2016

5 Benefits of Using Hashtags in Your Social Media Posts

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Internet is like a big ocean. More deep you will go, more interesting things you will find. It's always been a fun for me to do experiments and case studies on social networking sites. I was doing research on social marketing from last 2 years. Time flies so fast. Over this period, I have founded various interesting things.


One of them is hashtags. It is very important to know about this feature. Before starting all this, let me ask you one question. What do you think about hashtag. In simple words, Hashtag is a word or a phrase preceded by a hash sign (#) which is used in social media sites to highlight the topic.

For example, If I am sharing a post on how to install Android apps then "Android" and "apps" are the two important keywords which are describing the topic here. If I will add hashtag before them, then a link will add to the post which will help users to find other articles related to that topic. I think you already knew about it.

Almost all social networking sites especially Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+ accept the use of hashtags. If you're one of those people who aren't using them in your social media posts then my friend, you're losing tons of potential. In this tutorial, I will explain all benefits and importance of hashtags. So lets start now.


1. Hashtags Increases Your Post Organic Reach


As headline itself speaks, they will help you to reach more audience with organic traffic. Organic here means non-paid traffic. Let me explain it with a simple example. For instance, If you have a computer related Facebook page with 50k+ likes and you shared a post publicly with proper hashtags in it, then definitely that post will reach more audience comparing to other posts. You will get continuous flow of traffic for a long period of time. This is because, people will also find it in hashtag category. For example, If you've used "Android" hashtag than people from all around the world will also find it in Android category, no matter whether they have liked your page or not.

If people liked your post, chances are they will also like your page for more interesting updates. In the same way, you can use these hashtags in your personal profile to target more audience. One more important thing to note here is that, you should use only relevant hashtags. To many of them will look awkward and this will drop your post value. Do not join two keywords in a single hashtag. This will again reduce your potential reach.

Try to use those keywords which have medium popularity. If you've a verified page or profile than hashtags can do magic for you. Verified account are given first priority in result pages. Unfortunately, most of us don't have verified accounts, so its better to target medium popularity keywords.


2. Hashtags Can Increase Your Followers


Yes, you can gain followers from hashtags. Sounds good and bit unrealistic too? But the truth is, these things really works and at least they worked for me. The simple logic behind this tricks is to use some popular hashtags which can give you followers. Solid example is "#followforfollow". You can also write it as "#follow4follow". Other hashtags include #like4share, #shareforshare, #commentforcomment etc.,

When you'll add these hashtags in your photo, status or video then other people will find and follow you. In return you've to follow them back. It's like a tit for tat strategy but in positive way. You know what I mean?.

These type of hashtags are most popular on Twitter and Instagram and you can easily gain 1000+ followers with this tricks. All you need to do is to use these hashtags in every single post until you reach your milestone. There are few more popular hashtags for Instagram which includes #instalove, #instapic etc., You can find more by Google searching. These can also increase your post likes and comments. Now its your turn. Go and try this amazing tricks.


3. Join Trending Topics


If you will ask me a question that why hashtags are made then one of the most suitable answer would be that they give real-time information. Real-time means everything which is going at present. You can find anything happening in your area, state, country or world. For example, earthquake and news related information.

Apart from this, you can also add such kind of hashtags to inform other people. You can share your thoughts on a particular topic. Unfortunately, the saddest part is that, it's very hard to stand high in trending topic keywords. However if you own a blog/website where you share tech related news then it would to better to use real-time hashtags which have comparatively low competition.


4. Build Better Brand Base on Social Media


If you own a private company or online blog/website then hashtags can help you build better brand base on social media sites. The only thing you need to do is to create your company name hashtag and share it everywhere in each single post. Also encourage your fans or other people to share your hashtag. For this task, you can conduct small competitions and offers.

This all will help people to find more about your brand. They can see what other people are talking about you. Moreover, this will also make it easy to find every content related to your company under a single roof. Now go and work on this part.

5. Hashtags Appear In Search Engines


Last but not least, hashtags are search engine friendly means they can be found in search engines result pages (SERP). This is the most amazing thing about them. Out of all social networking sites, Twitter is given first priority in Google search result pages. This is due to the partnership between Twitter and Google. In my previous post, I had already discussed on this deal and you can read that article to know more about it.

Coming back to the main topic, let me show you the preview of "#quote" hashtags in Google SERP (See below picture). You can also find your keywords simply by adding hash sign ("#" also known as pound symbol) before them.


Hashtag related live tweets in SERP

Wrapping up all these points, we can say that you'll also get continuous flow of traffic from search engines which again adds up in organic traffic. So this is another positive benefit.

Now I just hope that you have complete knowledge about these hashtags. So what are you waiting for? Go and get most out of it. If you've any questions, feel free to drop your views in below comment box. Stay tuned for more interesting tutorial!

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