How to use brand specific hashtags to target followers?

By creating your hashtags you can drive organic traffic to your website and target your audience. It's important to make the most of this marketing strategy and get with the times, as they carry a lot of weight in social media marketing now.

#hashtagresearch

Do some research. Many sites will search across many social media sites and show you posts with the hashtag in. The aim for you is to create relevant hashtags that aren't in use as well as using ones that are.

Take #testyourhashtags as an example. I used a site called Hashatit.com and searched for this hashtag, surprisingly there were no results. That's not a bad thing though. Consider that if there are no current posts attached to the tag, this blog will be the only one and you will have the readers full attention. Take another example #createhashtags, this will be widely used as people will be researching on how to create hashtags and the originator of the articles will use that tag when talking about how to create them. Sort of like supply and demand.

Tips for #creatinghashtags 1. Keep them short. Period.

2. Use them in the content of your social media posts instead of at the bottom.

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5. Keep your links close to your hashtags, this will help increase the engagement you receive.

Make sure they are interesting, #furniture is not as interesting as #shabbychicfurniture They must be relevant. How many times do you see people randomly putting tags in a post just to get clicks? Sure they will come up in a search b ut if their post isn't about the topic, they won't get the engagement. I wouldn't write a blog about dogs and then use #motorbikes #classiccars as chances are I will just make myself unpopular.

Once you have made your hashtags - do you test them?

Sitting on a social media post and randomly putting in tags that spring to mind is one thing but if you don't know their impact or if anyone else is using them, how do you know if they are going to work for you? Or worse, you could use a hashtag thinking it means one thing but it means something completely different #awkward. You don't want to be paying respects to someone's funeral and then add a hashtag that is linked to mass amounts of party gear.

Take #walkitoff - it could mean things to do with dieting, exercise. sports, charity walks or even in regards to someone getting fired from a job. Just #walkitoff

It is really important to test your hashtags and while you are at it, make sure you look into software that can track the analytics of them so you know what gets the clicks and what drives the consumers to your website. If you find a hashtag relevant to your site that isn't widely used, it is possible to start a trend and be the centre of it, that's why testing and tracking are so important.