How to Promote Hashtag on Social Media Sites

So you think you have got a handle on your hashtag strategy – you use it as a tool to promote your content in order to make it easily discoverable for social media searches. That is, however, only as far as the textbook explanation of hashtags on social media goes.

But is the whole promotions-through-hashtags concept working for you? If not, chances are that you have got the fundamentals wrong. In order to get hashtags to start promoting your content, you need to start promoting hashtags first. Here’s how:

You can begin by learning to promote hashtags on Twitter.

Since, Twitter was the first social media site to introduce the concept of hashtags, it is only appropriate to turn to the site to master the art of promoting your hashtags. The real trick for promoting a hashtag lies in understanding its power beyond a mere tagging tool.

You need to follow some unique practices in use of hashtags such as hashtagging locations, avoiding hashtag overuse, and hashtagging supplementary thoughts in order to make them more appealing to your audience.

Don’t limit yourself to using promotional hashtags alone.

Any content that is too overtly promotional in nature can actually put off your audience instead of engaging them. Research has proven that making a soft call to action always proves more effective than hard selling posturing. The same principle applies to use of hashtags too.

Do not limit your hashtag use to only put forth messages that are promotional in nature as these fail to have a lasting impact on the minds of your audience.

Come up with some out-of-the-box ideas to that can strike the right chord with your followers or target audience and instantly grab eyeballs. Gaining and retaining user attention is the single most effective way to promote hashtags.

Before you start creating your own, find popular hashtags that others are using.

If you are new to the concept of hashtags and social media promotions, understanding the dynamics of running a successful online campaign can be a bit daunting. To be able to learn the ropes quickly, you must search the Internet for popular success and failure stories.

You can also find popular hashtags on Instagram. Many Instagram users repost popular contents using Instagram video and photo downloader apps and then add relevant & trending hashtags while reposting the contents to drive more user engagement.

You can find popular hashtags on various social media sites and analyze the factors that worked in their favor. Similarly, look out of hashtag campaigns that flopped and try to make a sense of what didn’t work for them. This in-depth analysis and research will come in handy when you start devising hashtags of your own.

Use hashtags to weave a story.

Stories have a humane element to them. They never fail to strike the right chord with the users and almost always succeed in extracting a response. Therefore, the best way to have a hashtag promote itself is by weaving a story around it. The key here is to keep it simple and easily relatable. For example, if you are a jewelry brand you can build a hashtag that talks about #YourWeddingStory.

Make the most of an upcoming event to promote your hashtags.

An important upcoming event can prove to be a gold mine of opportunities when it comes to promoting your hashtags. People are watching the online space for updates and inputs on any such event and this is your chance to make yourself visible.

Use hashtags for events to share any valuable leads that you may have and watch your hashtag hit the trending charts in no time. For example, a manufacturer of sports gear can use an important sporting event to create informative hashtags. Your audience will take it forward from there and do the job of promoting it for you.

Try to engage with your audience by their opinion.

Engaging with your audience by asking for their opinion is a sure-fire way to improve the visibility of your hashtags and generate a talking point around your posts. In all probability, your followers are likely to not only respond to your questions but also use the hashtag in their own posts, increasing its outreach. Even a simple question that is relevant to your field of operation – for instance, a women’s clothing brand asking its target audience #IsPinkYourColor – can do the trick.

Once your hashtags become somewhat of a force to be reckoned with in the online community, it is easier to use them for promoting your social media posts and improving your visibility.