How to Use Hashtags on Social Media to Help you Grow Your Business – Podcast Episode 147

by | Sep 16, 2021 | Facebook, Instagram, Marketing Strategies, Podcast, Social Media Conversations | 0 comments

Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 147 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re a first time listener, super super welcome, I am so pleased to have you here.  I am your host Jenn Donovan, and it’s my job, via this podcast, social media and everywhere else actually, to make your business life simpler.

This week, I have been having many conversations, actually this month/this year, I’ve been having many conversations about those pesky things on social media called hashtags!

How to use them

Where to use them

And how freaking many to use

And, actually, what they are all about – how can they help you grow your presence on social media and get noticed by the right people (buyers) at the right time

Oh, and what platforms should I be using them on.

Sound at all familiar?

I’m guessing so!

So those are the questions I am going to attempt to answer today!

Grab a cuppa and perhaps your pen and paper and let’s crack open the hashtag code!

Firstly,

What they are actually all about and what are they for

Big question!

Think of hashtags as a way of cross-referencing content – sharing the content of a particular topic or theme.

In a nutshell, hashtags make content discoverable in on-platform searches so you can, in theory, reach more people.

#smallbusiness therefore should (in theory) gather all the posts about small businesses in one spot.  I say in theory because there’s no hashtag police you say you can’t use #smallbusiness on your photo of your dog doing tricks for instance – you can use it – probably shouldn’t unless you’re in the business of training dogs, but no one is going to stop you!

From a business point of view, we use them to boost our social reach and engagement.

We use them as an attraction strategy to try and attract people who are interested in that subject, you might follow or search using that hashtag – find you, love you and buy from you!

Use them as nurture too I guess in that you are nurturing those already in your world with amazing content, some strategic content until they are ready to buy or buy again.

How many should you use on the different platforms?

Twitter – 1 to 2 hashtags

Doesn’t matter if you use them at the beginning, middle or end of your tweet

You can also use them in comments, in your bio or when you retweet something.

With only using 1-2 of them – thinking trending ones for most traction.

Facebook – 2-5 hashtags

You can use them anywhere – in comments or in posts

Remember, you are using them to group content together – someone of them probably should be all about you and your business to keep all your content together.

On Facebook, people will use hashtags to

  • Search for things
  • See a feed of Facebook posts using that hashtag
  • Search in private groups for a particular hashtag

LinkedIn – 2-5 like Facebook

Youtube – 2-3 I’m told – I say that because I’m not a Youtube expert – but those in my world who are, tell me that’s optimal

Pinterest – 2 to 5

But the big one is Instagram

Instagram – ummm 30!

There are SO many people with SO many opinions on how many to use and I’m sure some people are listening to this and perhaps yelling at me – going NO WAY – not 30, such n such said to use ….. blah blah blah – so you do you, but my advice, they give you 30 so use 30.

How many times, when it comes to these big social media companies, have they given us a tool they don’t want us to use?

Exactly – if they didn’t want us to use 30 – they wouldn’t give us 30~

Use 10 – you have 10 chances of people found, use 15 – and so on and so forth.

Use all 30 and ha – you have 30 chances of coming up in someone’s feed who might need exactly what you sell and you are their new bestie!

BUT, and there’s always a BUT – it’s marketing after all – don’t use 30 for the sake of it – if you can only think of 20 or 12 or 19 – then do that.

But honestly, if you aren’t using at least 10, in my opinion, you aren’t playing the game right.

My 2 biggest tips when it comes to hashtags on Instagram:

  1. Follow the ones that you use the most or want to be found for the most – keep an eye on what’s trending, who’s trending in them – if you want as a marketer (and if you’re in business, you’re in the business of marketing), you will start to see trends and things to help you in your own hashtag strategy
  2. These 10, 20 or 30 hashtags that you are using, are a liquid document – not a set and forget them. You have to analyse your data, are you coming up for them, are you being found because of the hashtags you are using, yes, great, no – change them.  Don’t use the same ones over and over with no result and expect a different result!  Do some hashtag research at least every 2 months.

              How do you research – click them, see if your posts are in the feeds for the hashtag you’ve been using.  It’s not rocket science, but it is work that needs to be done.

So the next big question then is what hashtags do I use – and I’m going to give you my hashtag 3 part strategy here and concentrating on Instagram because this is where the volume of you will be using and getting confused with hashtags and which ones to use and which ones not too.

Most people will go straight for the obvious and often big ones – even if they don’t realise they are big ones because they didn’t do their research first, just starting hashtagging.

So, let’s say you are going to use 30.

We need to break the 30 into thirds.

So, if you’re using 10, do the same, if you’re using 15 do the same – break them into thirds (or approximately thirds).

First third – niche to super-niche hashtags that have under 10,000 posts against them if possible.  It might be a big harder if you are using a location hashtag like #innerwestsydney that might have more than 10K – not sure, didn’t look before I said that!

But you know what I mean.

So, first third, your business, your name, your location, locations, your slogan, and so forth – niche, a little about you and the product or service you are posting about – but think niche.

Why niche, because those #’s are the BEST chance you have of being found – best chance of traction because they are smaller.

Less noisy, less competitive – more likely to be seen by your potential buyer.

Second third – hashtags the size of 10,000 to 300,000

A fair to a good chance of being discovered.

Third third – 300,000 + up to the millions. – Not much of a chance of coming up or being discovered under these highly competitive and noisy hashtags – but happy days if you do!

So, you can see if you are JUST using MASSIVE #’s your chances of being discovered in the noisy and crowded marketplace of that # are so small and therefore you are really wasting your energy just shooting for the big stars.

Now, all this theory needs to be tailored to your audience, your business and your goals, clearly.

If your books are full and you can’t take on more clients but just want to nurture your audience without anything to sell – your strategy looks different.

If your business is very local and you don’t sell online or can’t sell online, then again, your strategy would have a much more local focus and you would tailor this advice to suit.

All this is general advice – you need to get advice specific to your business – you can reach out and book a chat if you want to do this, but I often find that first up, just talking about numbers against hashtags, why that matters and the purpose of them, makes something click for people and they have an aha moment with their socials and start to be a bit more purposeful – just by thinking about things a little different – like I’ve presented here.

Maybe that’s you!  I hope it’s helped and given you some insight for sure.

So, just to close out – remember, change them up where appropriate – especially Instagram, do your research – watch your own insights and make sure your marketing efforts are working the best they can be for you.

Secondly, do a competitor analysis.  Have a look at your competitors and see what they are using and if they are successful in using them.

Thirdly, follow the ones that are appropriate and put them in your feed so you can see patterns, and trends as they happen.

And lastly, if you’re selling a brand that’s not yours – for instance, selling Maxwell and Williams products – research which ones they are using.  Often your suppliers have much bigger marketing and research budgets than you and are possibly using #’s that are engaging their shoppers already – you can piggyback on that success by using them too!

My amazing listener, I hope this has un-muddied the water a little around hashtags for you and perhaps give you some tips on how to make your marketing efforts work better for you.

Let me know in my Like Minded Business Owners group your insights and questions around hashtags – happy to chat more over there for sure. If you’re not a member, come join in – just go to Facebook and search Like Minded Business Owners and join in the fun over there too!

If you want to book a discovery call where we can see how I can help you further – do that!  Go to: http://bit.ly/Discoverwithjenn

But that’s it for ep 147. 

If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content.

Massive love coming your way if you do!

See you next week on the podcast for episode 148.  But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!

 

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Brilliant – it’s on its way – thanks!

 

Brilliant – it’s on its way – thanks!

 

Brilliant – it’s on its way – thanks!

 

Brilliant – it’s on its way – thanks!

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