Everything you need to know about Twitter hashtags

Hashtags pop up everywhere on the internet. One of their biggest advantages is that they can give your social media strategy shape and give brands a way to streamline the message of an entire marketing campaign. But how do hashtags work on the Twitter platform, and how does it affect the way we use them for business?

Twitter, the birthplace of the hashtag, currently uses them to group individual tweets around a common topic. Hashtags on Twitter can be used to identify your areas of interest, voice your thoughts, and share experiences. In short, hashtagging makes your content viewable by anyone who shares your same interests. With that in mind, let’s learn in more detail how Twitter hashtags can help elevate your brands’ business. 

A quick background on hashtags

With millions of tweets every day, Twitter manages a colossal amount of content. This also means that users need a filtering option to organize things around their niche, which is why in 2007, Twitter came up taking the # (pound symbol), and calling it the hashtag. A hashtag has two parts: the # symbol, followed by the keyword or phrase. For example, “Social Media” with a hash prefix without any space or punctuation becomes #SocialMedia.

The purpose of Twitter hashtags 

Hashtags are an easy way of discovering content on social media. Using a hashtag on your tweets will help you drive digital engagement by adding an additional layer of context to your thoughts. When clicked on or searched, a hashtag directs to a feed where all tweets that used the hashtag are displayed.

Finding the right hashtag

With an increase in the volume of tweets that flow in every day, it can be difficult to find something specific. The easiest way to find the right hashtags for your tweets is the “What’s happening” column on the right-hand side of your Twitter profile, which displays the hashtags that are currently trending. If your tweet idea matches with the trending hashtags, then voila! Add them to your tweets, and hit the Tweet button. 
But what if you want to tweet about a specific idea related to your brand or business? That’s when you search for hashtags specific to your niche using the Explore tab. Once you’ve decided on the hashtags you want to incorporate into your tweet, you’re good to go. Sometimes it’s valuable to keep an eye on others in your industry, so you should also learn what hashtags they use to stay on the same page.

What are the most popular hashtags on Twitter?

Sometimes, there are multiple reasons why hashtags become popular. Some of them are all-time favorites (#MondayMotivation), some are based on current trends (#COVID19), or they’re seasonal (#Coldweather). This is why it’s important to understand what type of hashtags you should use in what context.

These are the current most popular Twitter hashtags:

1. #followback
2. #friends
3. #funny
4. #food
5. #fashion
6. #photography
7. #picoftheday
8. #pets
9. #love
10. #travel

How to monitor hashtags

This is the one step most people miss out on! Tracking hashtags lets you stay agile in your social media strategy. Understanding what conversations and interests are moving the platform can help you understand the way trends transition and how to pace your social media game.
However, tracking hashtags effectively can be a challenge given the number of times they can be posted across various contexts and demographics.
So, what’s the solution?
With a social media management tool like Zoho Social, you can add in hashtags that you want to follow up on as columns under the Monitor tab, and get going.

How many hashtags is too many?

“Too much of anything is good for nothing.” -Mark Twain

It is vital to understand hashtag etiquette. Although Twitter has increased its character limit from 140 to 280, adding in too many hashtags cuts down your room to be creative. A long string of hashtags can make your tweets messy and unattractive. So, it’s best to stick between one to three hashtags always, with two being the sweet spot. 

Do hashtags increase followers?

One great way to boost your Twitter engagement and reach more people with every tweet is by using the best hashtags and tagging the right profiles. This can earn you a lot of interactions, like retweets, replies, likes, and follows, as well as clicks on any links, hashtags, or media that you include.
Since Twitter is where users go to share news, the topics that users are interested in change over time, so it’s best if you stay in sync with what’s trending. Hashtags can definitely increase your follower count, as long as you use them in the right context.

How do I create my own hashtag?

Simply type out the hashtag you want to create. Then, you just hit the Tweet button, and your new tweet will show up with the hashtag in blue. Click on it, and you’ll be redirected to the hashtag page. If you’ve created a brand-new hashtag, your tweet should be the only one there, at the beginning.

And there you have it! Hopefully, these points will help improve your brand or business on Twitter. Let us know in the comments below about any other Twitter strategies that you’ve followed. We’d be happy to hear you out.