Rising competition in the e-commerce field means sellers have to come up with new ways to boost their marketing. On-page SEO, advertising, and building links are a few methods you can try, but today, we will introduce a new way – using a hashtag to promote your brands.
A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the“#” symbol in a social media post. There are no spaces in a hashtag – for example – #usinghashtag. The word or phrase acts as a topic marker. People interested in that topic can find posts tagged with a relevant hashtag when they search for a keyword or phrase. It’s a way to attract online users to your post and website. To be indexed, the hashtag (#) can be placed at the beginning, middle or end of your post or comment.
Start a social media hashtag with your brand or special offerings, and it will drive awareness and engagement among your target audience. Social media engagement drives huge traffic on your website and rockets your sales.
Posting with a hashtag helps build your brand and consolidates your branding among customers. What’s more, a hashtag will help you reach more users among your target audience as the number of post followers rise.
But how can you use hashtags to boost your sales and increase your conversion rate?
We will break down this question, and give you our best tips for your business marketing practice. Let’s get started.
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Understand the hashtag type you use
If you want to use hashtags to promote your business, you have to understand the main hashtag types. There are three main types to use when promoting your business.
- Brand Hashtag
A brand hashtag is one you create with your company name, slogan, or tagline. Use something that is widely-known among your customers and make them key elements of your posts on any social media platforms.
Make a brand hashtag unique, simple and impressive. Search it on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to make sure users will find it easy to use and remember.
For instance, Leelinesourcing is a company name. On Facebook, the post includes the hashtag #leelinesourcing which promotes the brand and increases engagement on social media.
- Campaign Hashtag
A campaign hashtag gives your initiative a theme that your customers can get involved with. Offering customers a way to take part is a great way to reach target customers and increase engagement.
For instance, Airbnb initiated its #WeAccept campaign in 2017. The hashtag is memorable and easy to use and features videos and photos from people of various backgrounds and places — millions engaged with this campaign.
Be creative, and you can attract customers and increase conversions.
- Content Hashtag
The content hashtag is the hashtag related to the post content. It is used to improve the SEO of your post. People can follow hashtags they’re interested in, use relevant tags on your post, and they will see it. There are product hashtags, lifestyle hashtags, event hashtags, and location hashtags. You are allowed to use these content hashtags to promote your brand and engage with certain target audiences.
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Choose the right word
When creating a hashtag, you have to pick something easy to remember but also something people are searching for. This means you have to take the word or phrase into account when you want to market with hashtags.
Make it simple and relevant; it should deliver the idea clearly. Research current hashtag trends related to your customer and use the appropriate hashtag to categorize the content. Invite engagement and participation. Make sure the word is relevant to both your business and your audience.
Try to make it unique. Generic hashtags such as #marketing or #SEO are hugely popular, and your post will be easily lost. Make it different and unique to build your community.
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Use a combination of hashtags
If you are planning to release something new, remember to use a combination of hashtags to introduce your new arrivals. Look at relevant popular topics and events and join in with their hashtags; this is a great way for your brand to capitalize on current popularity.
For instance, your brand can celebrate public holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. Maybe you announce promotional activities with these public holidays.
Coco-Cola once re-introduced its beverage internationally with new retailored label #ShareACoke together with #Thanksgiving.
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Keep it short and impressive
It’s annoying when you come across a post with too many hashtags. Most users on social media see the overabundance of hashtags as spam and pay little attention to these posts. Use hashtags wisely and don’t over promote yourself. Use tools to organize your hashtag strategy. Each platform specifies the number of hashtags you can use.
While a hashtag doesn’t have space between the letters, you can still make it stand out by capitalizing the first letter of each word.
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Test your hashtag
How can you get the results of your post on social media platforms? Test its effectiveness; this is common practice in popular brands and a great way for you to find what resonates with your target on social media. You can also search for the most effective words on each social media platforms. With the test result, you can analyze and check its effectiveness. Revise your strategy if the result is not as ideal as you imagine.
Each social media site has a different user base, so consider your target across each platform you use.
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Use hashtags across different platforms
Hashtags started on Twitter, but they are popular over a wide number of social media platforms except for LinkedIn. Whether you are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you can use the same hashtags across them all to promote your business. Multi-platforms will widen your exposure, and the same hashtags will make it easy for them to find you. And you will get the cumulative marketing effects of the hashtag; making your brand a trend and leveraging the user base of each social media channel.
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Avoid making hashtag mistakes
When you start to use hashtags for marketing, try to avoid the common hashtag mistakes below:
- Adding the hashtag (#) both before and after the keyword.
- Leaving space between letters
- Spelling keywords incorrectly
- Using numbers between keywords
- Hashtagging every word of your post
- Repeating your hashtag multiple times in the same post
- Post one large hashtag that causes confusion and may be misleading
- Jump on a hashtag bandwagon to promote your business
You need to invest time in social media; it doesn’t happen overnight. Remember to do it well, and right, you will benefit in the end.
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Build a community around a hashtag
Hashtags are also helpful to build communities. You can use a hashtag to create and establish your community. Audiences can get involved and use the hashtag to communicate with each other at any time. For this to work, you have to make your hashtags unique and ownable.
Fostering a community will help build your brand and reach some influencers. Followers share the same values, goals, and missions as you. Your community can drive a campaign and be a platform for increasing your sales.
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Use tools to find and manage your hashtags
If you create a hashtag, how can you figure out its performance? Relax! There are several tools to help you monitor and evaluate hashtag performance. Tools can also help create and track a hashtag. Hashtagify for instance will present you all other possible hashtags related to a hashtag. It will show their popularity and relevance in relation to the original. The tool will help you analyze hashtags and provide more options for your hashtag creation.
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Boost engagement
Creating a positive environment with your hashtags will help boost engagement. Customize your hashtags for personal user experience and use strong Call-to-Action (CTA) language. Make your topic interesting and catchy. In your post use actionable language and encourage audiences to do one thing; either share their stories, post images or buy new products. Reward people who get involved. Remember to identify and incorporate trending hashtags to attract audiences’ attention.
Using the hashtag is a great way to present your personality and gain recognition. Be prepared to jump into the conversation.
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Track your hashtag performance
Once you create your hashtag, you have to track its performance to know what works best and what is not ideal. Tracking will enable you to improve your marketing and hashtag strategy to enlarge your customer base.
For instance, when you post your new arrivals, people show interest, buy the item, and tell others. You can figure out their location, gender, and other factors which will help you find other similar customers. Keep an eye on your hashtags; it will be easy for you to break down your hashtag performance.
All in all, you have to incorporate hashtags into your marketing strategy. You will have a great impact on social media, and your sales will rocket when you have huge engagement with your hashtags and posts. If you are stuck in your social media marketing, incorporate some of these tips into your business. Now, it’s time for you to get started.
Author Bio:
Sharline Shaw, the founder of a leelineSourcing.com, is an expert on Chinese export trade. With 10 years experiences in the field of sourcing in China, she is familiar with all relevant regulations and laws about China’s exporting. She’d love to share her experience with people and has written many helpful articles.
