What are hashtags, and why are they important? For anyone who works on social media, this is not mystery. But for those who are present on social media just because the entire world is, hashtags still remain a mystery. This is evident by how wrongly they are used.
A very prominent and audience-driving feature of the tech culture, the hashtag has long been added in the Oxford dictionary way back in 2010. Once just a key on the keypad of your phone, the hashtag is one of the driving forces on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Vine and Google Plus. So what does a hashtag do? It categorises. It leads users to specific content and to content of common interest. A lot of social media advertising depends on hashtags as data entered accompanied by specific words tagged with the symbol, facilitate analysts to pull up relevant data.
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Even on a smaller and individual scale, hashtags prove to be useful to users. For example, I am also a travel writer. So when I post my articles on facebook, I add relevant hashtags. Anyone else who is also interested in the same topic, can search for the hashtag and it will lead them to my article. The same goes for instagram, pinterest, google plus posts.
So, what is the correct way to use hashtags?
What not to do:
Do not apply the hashtag before, after or in between every possible word. The purpose of hashtags is to made content discoverable, and not everything in a sentence is worth discovering, to be honest.
Hashtag is applied to (in front of), specific key words.
Excessive number of hashtags make your post or sentence look silly.
Lastly, don’t spam with hashtags.
Hashtags have no relevance in private accounts. Because, your account is private.
Hashtags are here to stay, because social media is not going anywhere. With a lot of shift from mainstream advertising to social media marketing that has happened for businesses of all sizes, this platform is the present as well as the future.
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By now, the unintiated must have got a clear picture of what hashtags are and how they should be used. Youtube as well as the rest of the internet has a lot of guiding notes and videos which can help you use them correctly to promote your posts, business and cause.
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Read my ebook WRITE. EDIT. PROMOTE. to learn the basics about becoming an author – from writing your own book, to editing your first draft, and to promoting your book yourself! You can also read my ebook How To Write A Story Effectively and learn some valuable lessons about how a story can go from average to extraordinary. This book is part 1 of the series.
In fiction, I have two short stories for children in an ebook called Bedtime Stories.
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