How to Use Hashtags and Apply them on Social Media
What is a # Hashtag? Commonly used in popular social media sites, it’s a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a specific topic. Hashtags turn topics and phrases into clickable links in your posts on your personal timeline or page. This helps people find posts about topics they’re interested in.
To make a hashtag, write # (the number sign) along with a topic or phrase and add it to your post. For example:
I caught a big tuna today! #fish
When you click a hashtag, you’ll see a feed of posts that include that hashtag. You might also see some related hashtags at the top of the page.
Reminders when using hashtags:
– A hashtag must be written as a single word, without any spaces
– Numbers can be included in a hashtag, but punctuation and special characters (like $ and %) won’t work.
– You can search for a hashtag using the search bar at the top of any page
– You’ll only see posts that were shared with you
Note: The hashtag feature isn’t available to everyone right now.
Which Networks Support Hashtags?
Most social media networks use hashtags in the same basic way; to organize data and make it easier for users. But each network has way on how they use them.
1. Twitter – The network that invented the hashtag is the most popular site to use it on. Just scrolling through your feed and you’ll see that more than half of the tweets contain a hashtag. You can find trending topics on the left hand side of your Twitter stream.
2. Facebook – Clicking a hashtag on Facebook will bring you to a separate page with posts that are visible to you based on the various users’ privacy settings. You’ll also see the different trending topics in the top right hand corner of your News Feed.
3. Instagram – Hashtagging on Instagram is great if you want to see photos like the ones that you’ve taken. Simply hashtag the picture you took and it will create a link to a page with other pictures of the same subject.
4. Google Plus – Google+ uses hashtags similar to the other sites, but with a difference. Google+ will add hashtags to content if they think that it is a relevant and popular keyword. You do away with this through Google+ if you’d like.
5. Tumblr – When creating a post on your Tumblr page, you’ll see an area at the bottom asking you to add “tags.” When you start to type a tag for your post, Tumblr will automatically add a hashtag to the front of it.
6. Pinterest – The main thing that you need to bear in mind when creating hashtags on Pinterest is that they’re only clickable in a Pin description. Also, they are not searchable on Pinterest, so you’ll need to just search the keyword to find the content.
7. YouTube – Hashtag use within YouTube common in the comments section. Users can leave comments with hashtags, which will then click through to a page with videos that contain that hashtag in their title.
