What is a Hashtag?

Hashtags are popular on social media especially on Facebook and Twitter. It is usually a single word or phrase used to amplify the meaning, theme or topic being discussed in a post. It should not have spaces between words and other special characters like punctuation mark or symbols cannot be used. Although you can use numbers, you should have at least one letter.

The # (pound/number sign) Symbol

The hash, pound or number sign is being used to highlight a keyword, In other countries in Europe this is called a hash sign.

The hash is normally written at the end of the sentence

How did it started?

On August of 2007, Chris Messina  an open source advocate and a former Google employee posted a Tweet for the first #hastag on Twitter but it wasn’t called “hashtag” quite yet.

After two years, Twitter began to  hyperlink hashtags in tweets to Twitter search results and introduced it as a trending topic. For example if your search for a hashtag #GameofThrones it will redirect you to the tweets about the movie and will allow you get engaged to a post

Most social media network like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and others have also picked up this short form of communication and believed to be a better way of organizing brief exchanges and shares.

How does it work?

Make it as short as possible. It should use simple word, phrase(s) or abbreviation. It is loved by millions because it is easy for the users and search items can be quickly found by just typing in the hash and the keyword..

Make it relevant to the topic or the post. Hashtags has becoming a great way to sell your products or services  because it guides you straight to your potential customers- Let’s say you are trying to launch a massage spa, which is popularly associated with healthy lifestyle, foods and its benefits. So you can start using hashtags like #healthylifestyle #massagebenefits #healthyliving and so on.

Now this sounds like you are already creating an engagement between you and the audience. Hashtags has been proven to be a very powerful marketing tool if it is properly used.

In need of social media marketing or management services for your Orange County business? Call us at 1(888) 375-3058 for a free social media analysis today.