How to use hashtags correctly
In less than 10 years, ashtags have gained popularity among Internet users, and most of all - fans of social networks. This lattice has become part of the marketing strategies of large and small firms. On city streets there are numerous billboards with numbers, words and the world-famous "#" sign.
What are hashtags?
A hashtag is a hashtag combined with one or more words and/or numbers. You can use several of these combinations at the same time. Their main feature is automatic conversion into a link. If you click on any hashtag, you will get a selection of messages with this combination of symbols.
Most often, hashtags are used by ordinary users on social networks. The hashtag is useful for marketers, Internet masters, specialists in promoting websites, goods, services, and even entire companies. Sometimes hashtags are also used in search engines.
Main features of hashtags:
- Availability of keywords. The reader quickly determines whether they should read the post.
- Structuring. Hashtags provide a grouping of homogeneous information.
- Quick search. You can quickly find the necessary data in thematic messages.
A hashtag is a tag that filters different posts according to topics. Most often it is used in social networks, as well as in blogs. If a post is tagged with hashtags, it's much easier to find. You need to enter keywords in the search. This allows you to increase traffic to a site, group, or quickly spread a message.
How did hashtags come about?
Most people are convinced that the appearance of hashtags is due to the social network Twitter. In fact, the social platform only helped spread these badges. The latter appeared in the late 80s of the last century to structure information in Internet Relay Chat.
Twitter is the first social network to introduce hashtags. In 2007, designer Chris Messina asked followers about their relationship with the barred mark. After receiving numerous positive feedback and coordination with the management, the idea was accepted.
In 2009, hashtags began to be actively used on Twitter. In 2010, they were mainly intended to highlight popular trends and news in the media world. Although Twitter developers opposed it, the hashtags spread to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Google+, Pinterest, VKontakte, and others.
Rules for writing hashtags
Writing language
In the vastness of the Russian-speaking Internet, in most cases, hashtags are written in Cyrillic. However, it is advisable to supplement them with messages in English. And for major global social networks or other sites, you should use the Latin alphabet.
Various symbols
Almost any character can be used with hashtags. Do not limit yourself solely to words and a standard lattice. Use characters such as ~,!,%, &, *, `, @, $ ^, = or +. Make your posts creative and unique.
Forget about spaces
Hashtags are written without spaces. If you use the latter, then forget about the links: get only the hash and other symbols. The main thing is not to forget about the spaces in ordinary messages when writing on social networks.
Combine words
Spaces separate one word from another when writing normal sentences. What to do when you need to enter a phrase? Apply the "_" icon. For example, #how_to_put_hashtags. Do not confuse with the small dash ("-") icon.
How to make two hashtags?
To get two hashtags at once, put a space between them. For example, #how_to_set_hashtags and #how_to_set_hashtags_vk are two hashtags, and #how_to_set_hashtags_how_to_set_hashtags_vk is one.
Here are some more examples of hashtags:
- #Thanks_google;
- #Live;
- #Friends;
- #Passive income;
- #The world_should_know_what_I_eat.
Hashtags with their own name in most cases are used without capital letters. Although you can write like this: #ThanksGoogle. And to make it more readable, mark #Thanks_Google.
Hashtags on Twitter
Let's start with Twitter, thanks to which hashtags have spread to other social networks. We immediately highlight two extremes: you can not use signatures with a lattice at all or enter only the most popular options. If you do not use hashtags, at best, only a few dozen users will read the message. But in the second, the inscription will be difficult to find among hundreds or thousands of others.
Here is a concrete example of the effective use of hashtags. At the beginning of August 2015, the Vkontakte network was unavailable for 3 hours. Georgy Lobushkin, an employee of the latter, used Twitter to justify the causes of the problem. In a matter of minutes, thousands of VK users got acquainted with the message.
After analyzing the history of Twitter, it is worth highlighting several groups of hashtags.
Thematic
Twitter users post on a specific topic. If they took a photo while in traffic jams, then they can indicate something like #Moscow_traffic, indicating also the name of the district or city street. And in the case of a delicious lunch, they write #photo_food or #blunder. If an article is presented on the topic of promoting content on the Internet, then it is difficult to do without #seo or #seo.
Event
Such hashtags are dedicated to both global, national or local events, as well as personal outstanding dates. For example, such hashtags as #new year, #Sochi2014 Olympics, #presidential_election, #fire are popular. The message also indicates important events for a particular person: #wedding, #new_work, #birth_of_a child, etc.
Such hashtags are mainly used for entertainment purposes. Popular signatures are such as #I_never_never, #my_favorite_movie, #why_I_love, etc. Such messages do not carry any deep informational content. With their help, users communicate about personal hobbies and preferences. Hashtags are often used by famous people so that interest in their pages on social networks does not fade away.
To create hashtags on Twitter, a special window is used. The procedure is standard: mark # and write words. After posting a tweet, you will see that the hashtag will be colored in a different color.
Companies often strive to come up with unique hashtags. To do this, signature options are written in the search for a social network. If no similar combinations of words are found, then the proposed combination is unique. Companies increase the number of buyers through social networks. And well-chosen hashtags are also marked on business cards, banners and booklets.
Instagram hashtags
- #love;
- #follow;
- #followme;
- #happy;
- #Instagood;
- #tbt;
- #cute;
- #photooftheday;
- #tagsforlikes.
Interesting for the average browser is not the quality, but the number of hashtags. For example, Instagram has nearly 1 billion photos tagged with #love.
Hashtags allow you to group millions of photos on the Instagram social network. It is enough to enter a label to see images that reflect certain emotions or demonstrate the beauty of various parts of the world.
Hashtags and Vkontakte
Usually Vkontakte uses up to 5 hashtags. If applied more, it will look like spam.
The developers of Vkontakte paid special attention to the convenience of finding information using hashtags. As in the aforementioned social networks, in a special field, you must specify the keywords for the search and press the Enter key. And then the user gets acquainted with the search results.
If you are looking for information on Vkontakte, use double filtering: both by hashtags and by headings. For example, you can include #cars in News. You can also group information into the following groups.
- People.
- Audio recordings.
- Video.
- Communities.
Sometimes you need to find or specify information in a specific group. In this case, write a hashtag, @, a space and a link to the group. More clearly, it looks like this: # hashtag @ gruppa.
Facebook hashtags
Searching for information on this social network is very convenient. For example, you only need to click on the desired hashtag to get all posts with it. Another way is to enter facebook.com/hashtag/ into the feed of the search engine and specify the hashtag. In this case, the hash is not needed because letters are used instead.
Hashtags on Google+
Google+ also provides for the use of hashtags. In fact, there is only one rule - forget about spaces. An interesting feature is that after publication, only numbers, letters and underscores remain in the hashtags, and everything else is taken out of the tag.
Google+ only allows you to create hashtags with numbers: #3856 for example. And if you don’t put a label yourself, sometimes the system will do it automatically.
Google+ supporters should adhere to the following hashtag rules.
- With the help of tags, you can introduce information to people outside your circles. Get more followers.
- Use descriptive labels. Fewer words that are directly related to places, products or events. Messages like "Tips_to_housewives", "Writing_texts", or "Plumber_services" will be effective.
- Check Cyfe service. With its use, you can find information in the archives of the network.
The approach to search using tags is also interesting. The user receives not only the exact occurrence, but also words that are close in meaning. There are no restrictions on the length and number of hashtags.
Where else are hashtags popular?
Previously, Odnoklassniki used tags. However, at the end of 2016, hashtags replaced them. The latter actually become a link immediately after the publication of the post. This greatly simplifies the search for the desired information on the social network.
Hashtags are also used on YouTube. They are noted in the descriptions of the videos. More than 15 hash marks should not be entered, as the lion's share of users will consider this spam. In this case, the main purpose of hashtags is to simplify the search for thematic videos.
Pinterest also provides users with the ability to apply hashtags. This social Internet service does not set requirements for the number and length of tags. The latter are used exclusively in descriptions. Most often, users write letters and numbers.
Telegram, one of the most popular and trusted managers, also allows you to use hashtags. They are useful if you are writing or looking for important messages in both group and private messages.
Other rules for using hashtags
Having familiarized ourselves with the basic rules of how to correctly put hashtags and the features of social networks, let's dwell on some other nuances.
Stick to these simple guidelines and use the right hashtags.