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Should You Use Hashtags? Yes! A Guide to Hashtag Strategy in 2025
December 10, 2024
7 mins
Are hashtags still a thing?
Hashtags are among social media search engines. They structure and organize content to target your audience.
Today, Promodo marketers discuss the nuances of building a hashtag strategy and provide tips on how to research and use hashtags to expand the reach of your publications.
In layman’s terms, hashtags meaning is as follows:
Hashtags help us organize content and categorize it. They allow users to search for and subscribe to trends, join communities, and follow updates. They also help users find the necessary information and discuss shared topics of interest. Hashtags ease access to all the related posts in a single spot.
Why use hashtags?
Hashtags boost engagement, increase brand awareness, and help brands achieve the desired results.
Examples:
#JustDoIt - Nike
#ShareACoke - Coca-Cola
#ImLovinIt - McDonald's
#ThinkDifferent - Apple
#WhatsYourName - Starbucks
#TasteTheFeeling - Coca-Cola
And, that’s what is a hashtag all about.
The hashtag concept may seem simple at first. However, depending on your strategic goals, multiple uses are possible.
So, what is a benefit of using a hashtag? Hashtags work as beacons for specific topics or interests, making content accessible to a wider audience.
These are unique corporate hashtags that promote brands, styles, and values. Companies leverage branded hashtags to promote a specific message and effectively reach their target audience.
Branded hashtags help users better navigate content. Large brands often create fan hashtags to share corporate stories. This is also a sound way for employees to post photos of their pets or workdays. That’s how companies create customer communities with solid brand loyalty.
#StarbucksStories allows customers and employees share their stories about Starbucks coffee.
Community hashtags unite people with shared interests. They enable an ongoing discussion around specific topics, hobbies, or interests. These hashtags allow people to interact with everyone who shares their passions and contributes to discussions.
Levi’s successfully builds their loyal community with #LiveInLevis on Instagram. Customers add it to the photos while wearing Levi’s jeans.
These hashtags engage the audience in ads or social campaigns.
Used primarily by brands or organizations to promote a specific marketing campaign, event, or cause for a limited time. They overlap with branded hashtags but have a separate purpose focused on timely, targeted, and focused goals.
These geo-targeted hashtags help users find content or businesses in a particular area.
Hashtags for a product or service are the keywords that describe offers like #cosmetics, #bookstore, #pets.
Hashtags for events or seasonal moments reflect holidays or events like #Thanksgiving, #NewYear, or #metgala.
Daily hashtags: used on specific weekdays only.
That’s how hashtags work for many businesses around the globe.
Using hashtags is also about staying on top of the latest trends in your niche.
The first step is to understand why you should use a particular hashtag and explore it further. Identify the hashtags used by your closest competitors and niche influencers. Get an idea of what hashtags they use most often and how many tags they use in each post. This way you’ll know which hashtags are the most popular among your target audience.
ChatGPT will help you select hashtags. Ask it to find popular hashtags.
Proper use of hashtags assumes further explanation. Hashtags are niche-specific keywords for your products. Therefore, it's important to combine popular and niche-related hashtags specific to your product and best describe it.
Popular hashtags: provide a wide reach, though the competition is tough and your post can quickly get lost.
Custom hashtags: specific keyword combinations with a smaller but more engaged audience.
The synergy of these hashtag types will help you reach wider audiences.
The following are hashtags best practices across popular social media platforms:
Hashtag strategy for Facebook: as part of hashtag use in social media, we suggest using 2-3 hashtags to increase your reach. Choose branded or geographically targeted hashtags - the best for cross-media promotion and monitoring of key activities. Also, add your hashtags to Facebook Reels.
Hashtag strategy for Instagram: using at least one hashtag on Instagram boosts engagement by 12.6% compared to hashtag-free posts. We suggest using one to three hashtags in a post. Even preliminary research within your niche will help you understand what is hashtag in Instagram..
Hashtag strategy for X: assumes short and relevant hashtags. Use one or two hashtags per tweet for optimal engagement. Develop a response strategy to the most popular daily and weekly topics and craft relevant content.
Hashtag strategy for LinkedIn: hashtags play a vital role in making your content visible to the users not on your friend list. Use 3-5 relevant hashtags per post. LinkedIn suggests hashtags when you type a post, so make use this feature best. Participate in conversations about relevant industries to prove your brand as a think-tank leader.
Top Tip: Once you have a LinkedIn page, follow a maximum of three hashtags and publish your posts to those hashtag pages. This is an important but underrated feature of the page that allows you to keep track of the competitor posts that use the same hashtags.
Hashtag strategy for TikTok: once users search for a hashtag, they are provided with a feed of all videos tagged with that hashtag. Depending on the popularity of certain hashtags, TikTok creates “suggested pages” to highlight popular topics users add to their favorites and follow. For example, the hashtag #BookTok has gone viral in various countries and is used in book promotion strategies by publishers. Use hashtags related to your niche or topic, but make sure the hashtags you find are popular among users. Follow trends and use hashtags relevant to current events, challenges, and trends. Create your branded hashtag to increase brand awareness. Use four to six relevant hashtags per post on TikTok.
So, now you know how to use hashtags in social media marketing!
One of the most popular questions we get at Promodo is: “How do hashtags work?”
Hashtags are important for increasing the visibility of posts, engaging the audience, and promoting businesses. Their use may vary depending on the campaign goals and business types.
When running promotions, hashtags help draw more attention to special offers. Use unique and attention-grabbing hashtags like #DiscountsSummer2024 or #BlackFriday.
Use product-specific hashtags to increase awareness and expand your reach when launching a new product. To promote a new smartphone model, use the hashtag #Iphone16
Brand hashtags create a unified community around your company. They are suitable for large and small businesses looking to increase brand awareness like #Nike or #MyCompany.
Geotags are used for local promotion to indicate business or event location. They help to attract local customers like #NYCoffee or #MadridTourism.
Challenge-focused hashtags intensify interaction with the audience and encourage subscribers to participate in certain activities.
While hashtags are simple, many businesses are still making crucial mistakes:
Too many hashtags in a post: on average the content with one or two hashtags will receive more interaction, whereas posts with three or more hashtags will score lesser reach. Fewer hashtags in a post lead to better performance. It also makes it easier to analyze the performance of each tag. If you use too many hashtags, you’ll hardly grasp which ones are the most engaging among your audience.
Hashtags are not placed correctly. Insert hashtags organically to make your posts look visually appealing. Place your hashtags at the end of the post or in the comments section.
The same type of label in each post reduces efficiency. It's best to diversify hashtags to reach multiple audiences and the topics of interest. This way you stand a higher chance of reaching the top and drawing wider attention to the post.
Regarding Stories, we suggest using hidden hashtags to not to overload the visuals.
By following hashtag rules and our tips and strategies, you’ll soon turn in a hashtag pro and leverage the power of social media search to achieve your strategic goals.
At the core of a hashtag strategy is a synergy of popularity, relevance, and creativity. Remember to track your results and refine your approach along the way.
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