Hashtags are great ways to bring your organisation into an important conversation thereby enhancing brand visibility.
A hashtag is derived by using the number sign (#) before a word, term, or group of letters that links to a live feed of all social media posts using the same hashtag on that social platform. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are three of the most widely used social media platforms that have hashtag functionality.
Targeted hashtag campaign can potentially boost impressions, make content more searchable and encourage users to talk more about a brand. Hashtags also help increase the visibility of a brand’s messages and boost social shares. For instance, by using a #marketing hashtag in a tweet, it will not only appear in the home feeds for your followers , but also in the #marketing hashtag feed on Twitter.
Social media marketers often employ hashtags to create Twitter chats or regularly schedule conversations around a specific event.
TrackMaven, a data analytics firm recently released a report, analyzing over 65,000 posts across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to determine the current optimal number of hashtags, and the best length for hashtags, to improve post performance on each platform. The findings from the report which was released late 2016 will benefit any brand on social media.
The report found that of the posts analyzed, the best number of hashtags to use for Twitter is one, with an average of 90 interactions per post. This is against previous research which showed that tweets with more than two hashtags actually see a drop in engagement.
TrackMaven explains that attitude towards hashtag use have changed overtime. The prevalence of spammers has made users more wary about hashtags, hence have made them more unlikely to use them as a discovery tool. A hashtag for example #MadeinNigeria was always filled with junk results, the tendency will be for many people to ignore it when they see it.
The report also stated that hashtags with up to 18 characters perform the most on Twitter, followed by tags with three characters. 18 character hashtags saw an average engagement of 12,557 interactions per post while three character hashtags earned an average engagement of 10,871 per post.
Instagram hashtags has become almost as popular as Twitter hashtags. The platform allows you to add up to 30 hashtags per post. When it comes to Instagram, experts have always recommended the-more-the-better strategy. The TrackMaven report also confirmed this, stating that adding as much as nine hashtags if the best model.
Posts with fewer than eight hashtags see lesser engagement rate. TrackMaven recommends that when on Instagram, it is always better to err on the side of more hashtags rather than fewer.
However, the report found that Instagram hashtags that have between 21 and 24 characters perform best. However, hashtags that are 25 characters in length see a huge decrease in average interactions per post, and the engagement bottoms out for hashtags with 27 or more characters.
Hashtags are still not as popular on Facebook as they are on other platforms. Nevertheless, TrackMaven notes that the impact of Facebook hashtags on engagement is just as pervasive.
The report stated that Facebook posts with only one hashtag perform best. Whereas, posts with more than one hashtag see a gradual decline in average interactions per post and bottoms out for posts with more than six hashtags.
Furthermore, hashtags that have six characters in length have the best performance. Hashtags that are 10 to 17 characters long also perform well.
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