How to reach your audience with hashtags #

As a small business, using social media can be one of the most powerful tools for; building your brand, reaching your audience, and converting likes and followers to customers. But how do potential customers navigate the millions of daily posts and profiles across all social media platforms to find your business products and services?

One of the most useful and likely underrated features of social media platforms is the hashtag. With so much content across platforms, hashtags have become the holy grail when it comes to; making content easier to find, starting or joining group conversations about trending topics, and reaching a wider audience. 

Here is our overview of what hashtags are, how to use them, and which hashtags are best for making your business discoverable.

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are essentially discoverable key words or phrases that have a pound symbol (#) in front of them, for example; #hashtagstrategy. Hashtags categorise content and makes it easier to find on social media. Content posted with hashtags means that your post will present itself on dedicated feeds that people either search for, or they follow. Using the right hashtags is a way of ensuring that your posts; build your brand, reach your target audience, maximise engagement with your community and influencers, while helping you acquire new customers.

When developing your social media strategy, it’s crucial that you use hashtags strategically so that you maximise your reach across platforms. The hashtags you use should be relevant to your posts. You should also consider using niche hashtags where your posts or content have the potential to be discovered and stand out from your competitors.

How to use hashtags

One of the most important tips we can give when using hashtags is for you to only use ones that are aligned with your business. Just consider, what are the key words or phrases your audience and customers are likely to search for when seeking out the products or services you offer? No one likes to be misguided and directed to content that isn’t relevant or even vaguely associated with the what they’re looking for. So use your hashtags wisely.

Our five key criteria for keeping your post hashtags relevant and engaging are to include:

1. Your business type or industry - e.g., #florist #flowersales #wholesaleflowers
2. The products or services you offer - If you offer multiple products or services, only list those relevant to your specific post - e.g., #freshflowers #floralarrangements #weddingbouquets #tablearrangements #giftplants #flowerdelivery #funeralbouquets
3. Your business location and the areas you service - e.g., #innerwestflowers #sydneyflowers #sydneyflorist #metrosydneyflowers
4. Your unique selling points, what your business offers that your competitors may not - e.g., #weekendflorist #nativeflowerspeacialists #floralsculptures #7daysflorist
5. Other related words associated with your type of business - e.g., #weddings #events, #funerals #gifts #romanticgifts #love #sayitwithflowers #happinessisflowers

Deciding on what hashtags are best for your business

When creating your list of hashtags, we strongly recommend doing a little research first. It’s definitely worthwhile checking out your competitors or other successful businesses’ social media accounts and see which posts have the highest engagement or likes. What hashtags are they using on their posts?

We also suggest checking out specific social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to find out what the trending topics are. You’ll be shown how many times those hashtags have been used for content similar to yours so that you can either adopt similar ones or continue the search for others. On the otherhand, Facebook may require you to use the search function to find suitable options for your post.

The best advice is to test a range of different hashtags and see which are getting the most engagement. Remember, keep your hashtags relevant and don’t use too many.

Learn more

Need help in putting together a social media strategy for your business? Contact JMARC Consulting at info@jmarcconsulting.com for more information.