In the ever-evolving landscape of social media, hashtags have emerged as powerful tools for content discovery and engagement. From LinkedIn to Facebook and Instagram, each platform offers a unique approach to hashtag usage, reflecting its audience, objectives, and algorithmic preferences. Understanding these differences is essential for effectively leveraging hashtags to maximize your content's reach and impact. Let's delve into the nuances of hashtag usage across three major social media platforms:
LinkedIn: Elevating Professionalism with Purposeful Hashtags
LinkedIn stands out as the go-to platform for professional networking, career development, and industry discussions. Here, the role #'s play has changed. Today they play a crucial role in categorizing content. However, the key to success on LinkedIn lies in maintaining a professional tone and purposeful hashtag usage. Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn users tend to incorporate fewer hashtags per post, typically focusing on one to three relevant hashtags. These hashtags often revolve around industry-specific topics, professional events, career advice, and thought leadership. LinkedIn's algorithm no longer uses #'s to decide reach today it uses the #'s, the key words in the text and the images to decide relevance so stuffing your posts with trending but not relevant #'s won't work. Make sure everything about your post including the #'s is relevant By integrating industry-specific keywords into your posts, you can enhance their visibility and resonate with your target audience on LinkedIn.
Facebook: Harnessing Hashtags for Broader Conversations
While hashtags were initially absent on Facebook, their integration into the platform has facilitated engagement in broader conversations, events, and trending topics. However, unlike Instagram, where hashtags are central to content discovery, Facebook's algorithm prioritizes personal connections and engagement over hashtag usage. Nevertheless, incorporating hashtags into your Facebook posts can still enhance their discoverability and engagement, particularly for events, movements, or trending topics. By using relevant hashtags strategically, you can join conversations, increase your post's visibility, and connect with like-minded individuals on Facebook. Consider the different way #'s can be used on Facebook.
Discovery: If you want to be found, hashtags are a way to put your content in front of an interested audience. By linking your content to existing topics, it’s much easier to find.
Building Community: Hashtags can be used to form a community on a social platform. By sharing or creating a unique hashtag, you can find people in the same groups as you.
Branding: Creating a branded hashtag on Facebook can increase the visibility of your business. It also makes it much easier for people to find relevant, related content.
Events: By creating a hashtag for your events, you can give people an easy way to stay updated on your event. You can even boost it by posting it with your branded hashtag.
Consider using #'s from different categories so one hashtag to the audience: e.g #meettheteam, one hashtag for the topic: e.g #employeehighlight and two hashtags for the services: e'g #digitalmarketingagency and #contentcreator
If you don't know what #'s to use try the search function to find out how many post use a # and what they talk about to see if its relevant for you.
Instagram: Maximizing Visibility and Engagement with Hashtags
Instagram reigns supreme as the visual-centric platform where hashtags reign supreme. Here, hashtags are instrumental in categorizing content, boosting discoverability, and driving engagement. The Instagram algorithm heavily relies on hashtags to surface relevant content to users, making strategic hashtag usage paramount for success. Unlike LinkedIn and Facebook, Instagram users often include a larger number of hashtags per post, ranging from 5 to 30, to increase their content's visibility. By incorporating a mix of broad and niche hashtags, alongside descriptive captions enriched with relevant keywords, you can amplify your reach and engagement on Instagram.
Despite advice on the number of #'s to use suggesting 3-5 #'s on this platform research by Later found the more the better so long as they are relevant to you topic. 20 was the best number for highest reach. consider #'s from these categories to help you reach the desired number but remember they need to be relevant to be affective.
Location-based hashtags: Like #BryantPark or #BristolBusiness
Branded hashtags: For campaigns, events, or employer branding, like #AOMarketing or #AAOS
Industry hashtags: That describes your niche, like #digitalmarketing or #medicaldevices
Community-focused hashtags: To bring your community together, like #VanLifeLiving or #IAmASweatyBetty
Descriptive hashtags: Which describe the content of your actual post, like #hiprelacement or #footandankle
In conclusion, while hashtags remain integral to social media strategy across platforms, their effectiveness depends on relevance, context, and content quality. As algorithms become more sophisticated, simply using popular hashtags is no longer sufficient to increase your reach. Instead, focus on incorporating relevant hashtags, keywords, and compelling visuals or videos into your posts. Leverage platform-specific tools and external resources to identify trending hashtags and stay informed about your audience's interests. By adapting your hashtag strategy to suit the nuances of each platform, you can enhance your content's discoverability, engagement, and impact in the ever-evolving landscape of social media.
If you want further help on your marketing strategy, which social media platforms to use and how to use them then get in touch. We would love to hear from you.
