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What’s all the hoopla about hashtags?  When it comes to social media, hashtags are a BIG deal!  They are the key or more appropriately, the “link” to helping your target market find you.  

How “#” Hashtags Work:

If you click on any given # in a social media post or enter it into a social media search bar, instantaneously, you will receive all of the most recent posts and content that have been “tagged” with the hashtag word or phrase you clicked on or entered.  For example, if you are using Instagram and you type in the search bar: #SocialMediaRocks you will see there are over 1,200 posts you can read that are all about the topic “Social Media Rocks.” This same practice can be used on all the major social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  Fun Fact: Twitter is considered to be the “birthplace” of hashtags. Due to the way Twitter operates and the enormous amount of “Tweets” that are posted every second, hashtags are critical in order to keep up to date and track the content available surrounding a certain topic, trend, conversation, event, or issue.

How Should You Use #s For Your Business?

This is a common question we get asked…a lot!  The good news is, we have answers for you! We recommend you break down your hashtags into 3 major categories.  Those categories are:

  1. Branded Hashtags – certain words or phrases that specifically describe your brand.  Stumped on what you would use for branded hashtags? See if you can guess the brand behind these hashtags:  #ShareACoke, #ShamrockShake, #MacchiatoMondays
  2. Industry Hashtags – use hashtags to describe the industry you are in.
  3. Trending Hashtags – use hashtags that are trending as long as they are relatable to your business or the content of your posts

Hashtag Research

Finding industry hashtags and trending hashtags requires some work but we have some resources to help you.  Below is a list of resources to help you find the perfect hashtags for your posts:

  • Be a stalker – this is the one time it’s ok to stalk people on the internet.  Find out what industry influencers are using as hashtags in their posts. Chances are if an industry influencer is using the hashtag, it’s trending!
  • Hashtagify.me – is a great tool to see what is trending in your niche and to get hashtag suggestions
  • Hashtags.org – use this tool to find trending hashtags
  • RiteTag.com – this tool will provide suggestions and tell you which social platform the hashtag will perform its best on

The best way to optimize your hashtags is to really understand your business, who your business attracts and how to speak your tribe’s language.  Once you figure that out, you can design and craft the perfect hashtag words and phrases to attract them.

Hashtag Best Practices & Tips:

  • Create 3 types of hashtags for your business (branded, industry, and trending)
  • When using hashtag phrases, use capitals to separate words, example:  #SocialMediaRocks
  • Avoid including #hastags in the #middle of #sentences as it #makes your #content #difficult and #unpleasant to #read
  • Instagram will accept up to 30 hashtags per post, post these in the comment section below your post content
  • When posting hashtags on Instagram, avoid using the same hashtags over and over again as it will hurt your rank.  The Instagram algorithm treats repetitive hashtags has spammy practices (a.k.a. “shadow banning)
  • Always include content in your post.  Refrain from just posting a string of hashtags.  Your followers won’t appreciate it and they will begin to unfollow you

Download our hashtag organizer by clicking HERE

Happy Hashtagging!

untitledAs marketers, creating compelling content through social media is the key to our internet success. But, without the ability to reach a large audience and attract followers, our content can be easily lost and forgotten. The world of social media is constantly changing, and staying on top of the latest tips and tricks to help make sure you stay present is crucial to your success. For many businesses, Twitter is the go-to platform for attracting customers, promoting products and services, and making sure people are actually noticing their content. Here are some useful hacks to make sure your Twitter posts are reaching the right people and attracting more customers.

Pinning Posts:

Pinning your Twitter posts can be used to highlight AND pin your key tweet. This is a great way to make sure your richest content has a longer lifecycle and is visible to newcomers. How do you pin a Twitter post? First, find a tweet you want to pin on your Twitter profile. This could be a post that received the most favorites, had the most comments, a retweet from someone who mentioned you etc. From there, click the three-dot icon that appears at the bottom of the tweet, next to the favorites account. From the drop-down menu, select “Pin to your profile page.” This can also be done through your mobile device! When you refresh your page, your pinned tweet should appear at the top of your most recent tweets.

It’s important to note that pinning the tweet does not add the tweet back to your follower’s newsfeed. Only people who look through your profile directly will see the pinned tweets. Pinning your tweets is affective because it helps direct newcomers to the content you feel grabbed the most attention. This leads to even more retweets and favorites with new followers, and overall more exposure to your Twitter profile.

Twitter Cards:

Major brands have been jump-starting their Twitter posts by using Twitter Cards. A Twitter Card allows you to decide how you want your content to be displayed within tweets and helps you stand out amongst the clutter. This leads to increased likelihood that customers will click on and retweet your posts. There are 7 different types of Twitter Cards that help your posts stand out and drive more traffic to your website.

One of the greatest Twitter Cards for marketers is the Twitter Summary Card. This allows marketers to customize the content description that appears in the summary before it’s posted. Whether you want to share your opinion, provide a short overview, or ask a question, the Summary Card makes it easy to eliminate the sometimes off-message default lines of text that appear with a particular link.

How To Enable Twitter Cards for Your Site:

  1. Using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, enable Twitter card meta-data from the Social>Twitter menu.
  2. Visit the Twitter Card Validator and enter the URL for your blog.
  3. Once your site validates, request that your url is added to the beta program. Twitter will likely have you validated in just a few days.

Organize Weekly Twitter Chats:

Twitter chats are directly tied to specific and original hashtags through which tweets are organized and tracked and are great for your overall Twitter marketing strategy. To have a successful Twitter chat, set a date and time when most of your followers will be online, then choose a hashtag. Keep your hashtag short and concise, but also memorable and unique. Before starting your Twitter chat, make sure you have staff to keep things running smoothly and to prevent your hashtag from being hijacked. There are various tools to help organize your chats such as Twubs, Nurph, and ChatSalad.

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results | Twitter Hacks for Marketing | Marketing your business with Twitter | Twitter tips | Twitter How to | Twitter Marketing | Twitter for Bloggers | Twitter Social Media

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results

1: Turn a Pinned Tweet Into a Feature Box

The Feature Box is an email form you place at the top of your homepage, which offers your website visitors a freebie in exchange for signing up for your email list.You can add a similar feature to your Twitter profile page by combining two of Twitter’s native features: a lead generation card and a pinned tweet. Simply create a Lead Generation Card that includes an incentive for people to opt in. Offer regular email updates, a special freebie or a subscribers-only discount. Pin the tweet to the top of your Twitter profile and you’re all set.

2: Communicate Less and Tweet More Links

A recent study by Dan Zarrella looked at the “reply rates” of about 130,000 random Twitter users and discovered that highly followed accounts tend to converse less. Keep in mind, the study results don’t suggest that Twitter conversations have a negative effect on your following, just that conversations aren’t what motivate people to follow you on Twitter. According to another study by Dan Zarrella, the way to get more followers is to invest more time tweeting relevant links to your followers, rather than communicating directly with them.

3: Ask Twitter Influencers for Help

According to BuzzSumo who recently studied the share counts of more than 100 million articles, when influencers share your content, the reach increases substantially. If one influencer shares a piece of content, it will get 38.8% more social shares. Three influencers double the social shares and five influencers quadruple them. It’s crucial to network with influencers and develop relationships with them. Then, when you have an important piece of content you’d like to get seen, you can ask the influencers you know to share it.

4: Use Twitter’s Recommend Feature

Recommend is a new feature of Twitter’s tweet button that many people don’t pay attention to. After a visitor tweets an article from your blog, the window recommends they follow you on Twitter, if they don’t follow you already. This is an excellent way to grow your Twitter account, since people who just tweeted your article are likely to want to follow you. Look at the code of your tweet button and make sure the recommend field contains your Twitter username. To double-check you’ve set up the feature correctly, ask a friend to unfollow you on Twitter and then tweet an article from your blog. If the recommend field contains your Twitter username, you’re all set.

5: Repeat Article Tweets

According to a study by Wisemetrics, the second tweet of an article gets as much as 86% of the performance as the first tweet. Clearly the performance will fade with each new tweet, but considering your followers are probably in different time zones, you still need to tweet your most valuable content more than once. Your new followers will appreciate it, since the content will be new for them.

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results | Twitter Hacks for Marketing | Marketing your business with Twitter | Twitter tips | Twitter How to | Twitter Marketing | Twitter for Bloggers | Twitter Social Media

And finally! Here are some Tips for Writing Great Tweets!

Composing the perfect tweet isn’t easy.  With only 140 characters at your disposal plus million of users from all over the world generating more than 500 million tweets a day, it can be extremely difficult to get through the noise.

While there is no such thing as the perfect tweet, there are some guidelines to follow for writing one that will capture the attention of people.

Tips for writing great tweets:

Get to the point

According to studies, tweets with less than 100 characters get 18% more engagement. When writing tweets, make sure you keep it short, concise, and interesting. Get to the point. Make every character count. If you have a longer message to convey, we suggest that you include a link to a blog post.

Start interacting

If you want to reach more people, make sure that you interact with them. This can be done in many forms – by asking a question, retweeting other’s posts, responding to other users, following interesting people, engaging in conversations or sharing valuable information.

Command action

Recent studies show that tweets that command action receive better engagement and retweets. When writing tweets, make sure that you include a call to action. Whether you want people to follow you in other social networks, retweet your posts or enter your contest, you need to be clear about what you want people to do.

Use hashtags

A hashtag provides a way for new followers to find you. It is how you identify your content as relevant to a certain field or group of people. Make sure you include hashtags in all your tweets, but don’t overuse it.  You can use an existing hashtag or create your own.

Proofread

As a business professional, you want to make sure that your tweets are free from grammar and spelling errors. Your tweets will only be composed of 1 to 3 sentences, so make sure that you get them right.  Avoid slang and abbreviations.

 

As Social Media sites are growing, so is the use of the hashtag. If you didn’t already know, a hashtag is a word or a group of words after the # sign. Whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc., hashtags are popping every everywhere. On Twitter especially, the hashtag has proven to be an extremely powerful tool for marketing businesses. But, how do we use this strategy properly? Hashtagging can either help you reach your target market and expand your business, or it could be a waste of your time. It is crucial to learn the power of this social media marketing tool and how to use it properly. Here are some useful tips:

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Tip#1: Defining Your Brand

The first major step to using Twitter and hashtags effectively is defining your brand or business in a few specific words. Twitter is one of the most widely used social media sources, so you want to make sure your posts are being seen by the right people. Your central business tag should be a word that is unique to your business. You can make it your company name or a tagline that people will know about your business. For example, Red Bull uses #givesyouwings which is their company slogan. Doing this will help your business become recognized.

 Tip #2: Use Trending Hashtags

It is also important to understand trending hashtags. A trending hashtag is a topic that has become very popular. Keeping an eye out for trending hashtags that have to do with your business is a great way for your posts to get noticed. This can help your post be seen by a large audience, but still focuses on your business. Your content can be seen by more than just your followers, so it’s important to get yourself out there by using a trending hashtag. Trends on Twitter can be found on the left hand side of your computer Twitter feed.

Tip #3: Use Content Tags Properly

Lastly, using the right content hashtags is another crucial step for your business success on Twitter. These tags are not branded, and aren’t necessarily popular or trending, they are just simply unique to your business. Using these enable you to get seen by your consumers who are searching for those specific hashtags. One of the biggest mistakes people make when using hashtags is not being specific enough to your business. For example, using #food if you run a catering business will end up working against your favor. Millions of people a day use #food and that is never an acknowledgeable hashtag for a business. Instead, using something more specific like #foodcatering will get your post noticed by your consumer. Finding common hashtags by checking out what tags are being used by your followers and your competition is a great way to make sure you’re using them effectively.