Now that Facebook has jumped on board the hashtag wagon (hashtwagon? …no?), there’s no reason for your company not to follow suit. The hashtag, although publicly decried in the media as an annoyance, can be a powerful tool if you use it the right way. The purpose of the hashtag is to categorize your posts so that they are included along with posts from others in one feed, to connect your brand to the topic so that interested readers will be able to find you.
So what is the right way? As we’ve explained before, there aren’t a lot of limits when it comes to hashtagging. To our readers who might be unfamiliar with the world of social media, that may sound intimidating. Don’t worry – we’re here to help. Here we’ve compiled a few suggestions for widely used hashtags that may inspire you to help your company join the online conversation.
- #throwbackthursday (or #tbt) – People post “throwbacks” of all kinds on Thursdays, ranging from baby pictures to historical trivia to links they’ve already shared before. Using this hashtag is a good way to recycle your older content without seeming overly desperate for attention.
- #followfriday (or #ff) – You are much more likely to get something if you ask for it. This tag is used to promote the other users on your network for whatever reason. Perhaps they are your clients, perhaps they are just accounts that you enjoy, but whatever the case, this tag is the perfect way to spread the word.
- #caturday – The internet, for some reason, just loves cats. Caturday was born as a Saturday morning tradition of posting photos of cats on 4Chan, a message board website. Since then, the idea has traveled to other social networks, but nobody really minds, because c’mon… Cats are adorable.
- #justsayin – Got something to say? Tag your opinions with this hashtag, then browse posts from others who need to get a load off their mind. You never know what you might learn.
- #funfact – Depending on your industry, people may not know what you know. Take the opportunity to educate your audience with trivia or facts that just might help them out at home, and they’ll forever consider you an expert in your field.
Creating your own hashtag can be a great idea if you want to unite multiple users on a single social network, especially Twitter or Instagram. For example, at weddings these days, it’s pretty likely that guests will be using their smartphones to take pictures throughout the event, capturing intimate moments and design details that professional photographers may be hard-pressed to replicate. If these guests use one common hashtag for their posts, then sharing these posts with the other attendees is a cinch. This hashtag strategy can be useful in a variety of similar situations, such as business conventions and conferences, trade shows, school events, and more.
To learn more about the language of Twitter, take a look at our Twitter glossary.