02 Mar Let’s Get Social: A #Hashtag Crash Course
Ah, the humble hashtag. Something that may seem so small and insignificant, but is actually the key to creating an amazing social media presence. We definitely don’t underestimate hashtags over here at LUYA, and neither should you…
They’re great for improving your post reach, getting new people engaging and keeping track of tailored campaigns. But they also need to be used wisely to really make a difference.
We’ve got a lot of advice when it comes to making hashtags put the work in for you but firstly, let’s have a look at the main types of hashtags out there and how each can be used to meet different social goals…
TYPES OF HASHTAGS
1. High Traffic – this includes any hashtag with more than 10K uses, and are a great way to reach new potential followers and build your brand awareness (e.g. #foodie or #hotel).
2. Niche – this can include high traffic examples, but ‘niche’ specifically refers to hashtags that fit within your brand’s individual market or sector and often includes hashtags well below the 10K usage mark (e.g. #leedshotel or #chesterfoodie).
3. Personalised – this includes any new hashtag that you create specifically for your brand. These are often used to market particular campaigns such as giveaways, to keep track of user-generated content or to highlight new service promotions (e.g. #LUYAgiveaway or #LUYApr).
BUILDING A HASHTAG POOL
When it comes to creating a great performing social post, you need a healthy mix of the first two and a few additions of the third (when relevant to specific campaigns)!
High traffic examples will increase that all-important reach and help serve your content to a new audience, niche hashtags will make sure that the new audience is still relevant, and personalised ones will grow overall brand awareness across the social sphere.
Here’s an example of how we’ve used each type of hashtag:
1. High Traffic – #transformationtuesday #interiorinspo #interior123 #interiorinspiration #interiordecorating #interiorstyle #interiorarchitecture #renovationjourney #ukhotel #ukhotels
2. Niche – #visitleeds #leeds #hoteltransformation
3. Personalised – #AllHailTheQueens
We’d recommend spending some time researching hashtags for your specific brand and building a large pool, which you can then pull from whenever creating a new social post.
OUR #TOPTIPS
1. Just because unlimited hashtags exist, it doesn’t mean you should clog up your social posts with them! We’d recommend researching what works best for each social platform and following those suggestions. For example, Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags but posts with 10 – 20 perform better on average as hashtags are more specifically tailored.
2. Always, always, always shake things up from post to post. Algorithms hate self-plagiarism and you could risk shadow bans, deleted content or a blocked account if you don’t change up your hashtags. This doesn’t mean every hashtag needs to be different, but make sure you’re tailoring to the post content every time.
3. Be banned-aware. Certain hashtags such as #ValentinesDay are banned on a fair few social platforms and, when used, will risk a shadow ban on your account. You can check a pool of up to 30 hashtags in this handy tool before going live with a post.
4. Separate your hashtags from your caption copy. Keep your posts tidy and always section out your copy and hashtags using spaces or punctuation, and never put your hashtag in a separate comment away from your original post copy!
5. Weave in occasional ‘in-text’ hashtags, but don’t overdo it. This helps to prioritise more important hashtags and to highlight specific social days (e.g. #InternationalWomensDay).
Feel a bit like you’re drowning in a sea of never-ending #’s? We know the feeling! If you need a hand making your social stand out from the crowd, we’re always here to help. We’d love to hear from you: hello@luya.co.uk.