You’ve seen them before – the little symbols along with bunched-up words. But what are hashtags and why are they important for social media marketing? In this post we explore the history of the hashtag, the top reasons why you should use them and effective ways to implement them for your social media activities.

By the end of this post you’ll be making the hashtag a consideration for your social media content and strategies.

What Are Hashtags?

Hashtags are keywords or phrases preceded by the “#” symbol on social media, used to categorize content and make it discoverable to a broader audience.

It’s hard to believe that the first hashtag was used 15 years ago. Since then, hashtags have boggled many minds as to what their significance and use may be. Previously called the pound sign, the symbol was first used in Internet Relay chats during the late 1990s, where its sole function was to organize and structure related subject groups.

The true social phenomenon of the hashtag wasn’t sparked until 2007, when a web marketing specialist named Chris Messina tweeted to his followers asking them how they felt about the strange symbol for grouping. The reviews came back clamouring for more and the usage of hashtags began to take over the social space.

Hashtags used to be solely prevalent on X (Twitter) and Instagram, but nowadays, their effectiveness and popularity have grown to a point where almost all social media platforms implement hashtags in their own shape or form. Knowing how to navigate through hashtags is a helpful skill for anyone in the virtual space.

All entities from a marketing agency to small and large businesses, celebrities, regular individuals and more implement the use of hashtags in their everyday lives.

Use Hashtags for Branding

Hashtags create great visibility. This being said, having great visibility is a key factor in developing a successful brand for your digital marketing agency or small business. Hashtags have many uses, but branding and visibility are their bread and butter.

If your business is just starting out, you can use hashtags to inflate your audience reach and help center in on the right demographic for your brand. When other users search for a hashtag that one of your posts is using, they’ll be taken to your page as a result. This process leads to more traffic around an account and an increase in possible customers.

Use Hashtags for Competitor Research

With any business, it is always important to know who you’re competing with. Not only can a hashtag help reveal who your competitors are, but also how your opposition advertises their products or services on social media. Instagram hashtags help you do this by giving you an insight to key competitor information such as an account’s most common hashtags and their best performing posts.

Use Hashtags as a Promotional Tool

One of the reasons why a hashtag has seen so much success on social media can be attributed to the fact that they are the main component behind targeted campaigns. A Hashtag is a great tool for these types of marketing strategies, as they create a sort of snowball effect for social activity that helps users immerse themselves into the algorithm.

The whole idea of using a hashtag on social platforms is to let users and the algorithm know that your content is relevant to a certain niche or topic. What this does, in turn, is help your audience find the relevant content matter that spans your platforms. Hashtags help your content become accessible and distinguishable to the right demographic or audience.

The power of a popular hashtag is unparalleled. This can be seen as every trend or protest on social media that’s swept the nation in the recent past has had the power of a hashtag holding it in place.

How To Use Hashtags Effectively

Hashtags may appear simple in structure, but carry a complex purpose. They make searching for subjects easier and help connect like-minded people with each other. Many advertising experts suggest using hashtag groups nonsensically and plentifully. However, the best marketing agency is one that understands the importance of hashtags and how to use them effectively.

Hashtags can be used for a lot more than just looking for #ThrowbackThursday posts on your feed. Hashtags are how many people all over the world gather towards a certain topic or event. As a business owner, hashtags can also be used to help advertise and promote your businesses services and offerings.

Hashtags are also a great way to raise awareness or shed light on an ongoing crisis. For example, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag itself garnered almost 4 million uses per day during the summer protests of 2020. The hashtag was used symbolically as the protests for equal rights made their way onto mainstream social media platforms.

Now that the basics of hashtags have been laid out, we can delve a little deeper into the other properties and capabilities that make hashtags important tools.

Let’s Work Together To Improve Your Hashtag Strategy And Social Media Marketing

You now know what are hashtags and how they’re used. Thinking about creating a hashtag strategy for your social media but don’t know exactly how to begin? At CM2 Media, we can help – we work with hashtags on a daily basis, boosting our client’s online presence to broader audiences.

Hashtags and social media marketing go hand-in-hand. Let’s make sure you’re tapping into their power to unleash your online potential.

If growth on social media is on your current to-do list but you’re not sure where to start, CM2 Media can help. Please contact us using the form below, using the chat function on our website, or by calling 1-855-656-5262.

We are located in Burlington, Ontario, serving businesses big and small to help with your social media game. Contact us today about your online ads, website and growth on social media!

Check out some of our client websites and online ad platforms:

Canada’s Walk of Fame
RBC Emerging Musician Program
O’Brien Lifting Solutions/a>
I Sarti Luxury Menswear

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What Are Hashtags And Why Are They Important For Social Media Marketing?