How to Use Facebook Hashtags

In social media marketing, being helpful is key. Be real and accessible, strive to educate and entertain, and build communication to make your company relevant and sought after. Easy right? Not always.

While a successful social media marketing strategy certainly helps, you also have to switch things up and change things around on occasion to stay current. Sometimes that means stepping back to look at your presence with fresh eyes. I suspect my inadvertent hiatus from social media last week due to an eye injury might have helped me on that front. It made me look at my own personal Facebook marketing slightly differently and recognize that it was time for a tweak. It was time to own the hashtag.

Own the Hashtag

What do I mean when I say to own the hashtag? After a conversation with an aspiring writer friend of mine, I realized that I was letting an opportunity to label my Facebook posts more consciously slip by. Facebook hashtags help followers know what posts are about and thus understand them more readily and I realized I was missing out on making some my own.

You see my posts sway between content for writers—writing and grammar tips, writing contests, writing inspiration, etc.—and social media strategy—what to post, how to interact, how to build a social media presence, etc. I usually use a few hashtags to make the posts searchable, but try not to overwhelm followers who find an overabundance of ### confusing and obnoxious. But I realized that perhaps I could make those #hashtags work harder for me.

How to Use Facebook Hashtags to Your Advantage

What do I mean? I know how to use hashtags and probably should have been doing this long ago, but I am talking about owning them moreso. Hashtags can be brilliant for branding (think big brands and how easy they are to find). When you type in a word with the pound sign in front of it, it makes that term searchable. Fantastic, but you can also create a stronger brand or image for yourself with hashtags as well. Instagram does this well, but you can certainly leverage the power of hashtags anywhere.

For example, #ldnont is a hashtag used to search anything related to London, Ontario. It is used across social media platforms and helps you find content related to London. If I wanted to create my own hashtag and own it, I could start adding it to all my posts, say #LdnOntKat or #KatWrites. The first has no posts on Twitter and the second is not widely used, so I could easily build it up to my benefit.

Aside from personal branding though, I thought perhaps I could tag my Facebook posts with hashtags to let users know what the post is about at a quick glance; for example, use one of two or three key tags, in addition to any other pertinent hashtags – #KatWrites #SocialKat #KatReads .

Oh, now that I typed that, I love the idea even more! So #katwrites would be geared towards writers and those looking for help with their writing, #socialkat could focus on social media tips, tricks, and tidbits, and #katreads might be a landing space for all things books. Plus, any other hashtags that might benefit the post. Hmm, I like it.

***

What do you think? Any other suggestions on owning my Facebook hashtags? Any other thoughts on how you can use hashtags yourself? I would love to hear them!