Today marks the 11-year anniversary of the first time a hashtag was tweeted! American technology evangelist Chris Messina is the first recorded person to have ever used a hashtag in a tweet, proposing the use of the pound-sign followed by a word or phrase to categorize topics and conversations.
Today, Twitter’s use of the unique tagging system in posts has popularized hashtags as what we know them to be today, tools to start and join in on conversations happening across the internet.
Since the rise of Hashtags, many platforms have integrated the ability to click on hashtags in posts, however not every platform is the same. Let’s take a look at the best ways to use hashtags on Facebook…
Facebook Hashtag Strategy
Hashtags are a great way to start and join in on conversations happening on social media. However, due to the nature of Facebook’s privacy settings for users, most posts with hashtags used on Facebook are not discoverable to the public. (SproutSocial, 2017.) In turn, hashtags on Facebook are mainly used by brands and influencers and if used incorrectly, can have a negative impact on your page’s engagement.
Keep It Simple, Keep It Safe
According to this Facebook for Media post from 2016, the most important rule when it comes to Hashtags on Facebook is keeping it simple.
“Several different hashtags for a single topic can sometimes be confusing for fans. Keep it simple and use one or a few hashtags that fans can understand and remember” -Facebook for Media, Use #Hashtags on Facebook, March 21, 2016.
Brand Identity
Using hashtags on Facebook to identify your brand and establish a voice are also acceptable uses for hashtagging on the platform. This can be accomplished by generating a unique-to-client hashtag for their brand or marketing efforts. In the Houtsuite article, The Do’s and Don’ts of How to Use Hashtags, they discuss how brand hashtags are also a great way to raise awareness for campaign and initiatives.
“Not only does a brand hashtag drive participation and engagement, it will also organize all the posts that are tagged with it on a hashtag page. This is helpful if you’re using the hashtag to collect entries for a promotion or contest, as Lay’s was with the #DoUsAFlavor campaign.” -HootSuite, The Do’s and Don’ts of How to Use Hashtags, March 10, 2017.
Best Practical Practices
Other important practices to keep in mind when using hashtags on Facebook include:
- Incorporating hashtags into sentences when appropriate.
Example: “Who gets your vote for #NBAFinals MVP?”
- Using hashtags to identify a topic of conversation.
Example: “The Heat are playing great! #NBAFinals”
- Avoiding punctuation and spaces to ensure your hashtags are clickable
- Always using the CamelBack method of capitalizing every word used in a hashtag for easy readability when typing out hashtags.
Example: #NavigationAdvertising.
Having trouble navigating the best practices for Social Media and digital marketing? We can help! Contact us here…