Facebook now allows hashtags on its platform, and for some people you may be asking what exactly is a hashtag anyway? You may have seen it around, it’s the # symbol in front of a word. Now what are they used for? Well they are used to organize conversations about people, places, events and topics. Basically, hashtags make it easy to find, follow and join online conversations about things going on, or topics that you care about.
Now that Facebook allows hashtags this can be extremely helpful for small businesses. Hashtags can provide a way for advertisers, retailers and businesses to connect with key audiences. Hashtags allow your business to hone in on conversations that relate to your product or service. A hashtag can also be used to influence or drive conversations about your business, product or service.
Here are some ways your business can take advantage of the Facebook hashtag:
- Identify hashtags around your products, services, industry and location. Then develop a hashtag strategy that will be helpful for your business.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment. Start incorporating hashtags into your current Facebook content, use hashtags on your status updates and picture updates.
- Hashtags are often used for real time conversations. Start following real-time public conversations and test different ways to engage in those conversations using their specific hashtags.
- Keep in mind that hashtags you are currently using on Twitter or Instagram are now clickable on Facebook. Be careful when linking a lot of channels to each other. Be strategic when sharing to multiple channels for each channel’s audiences are slightly different.
- Hashtags will not automatically improve your reach or engagement, continue to work on making your Facebook content engaging on its own first, then work in hashtags.
Note:
You can search for a specific hashtag or test hashtags in the tool bar to see if people are talking about those specific topics. From there you can work those hashtags into your strategy. Remember not to overuse hashtags, stick to one or two hashtags in each update.