Be it a small business house or a top-rated brand; every company on this earth uses Facebook as one of their major marketing platforms. While compelling copy and beautiful photographs are considered to improve the post engagement, the hashtags are a subject of discussion and still trying to get a foothold on the Facebook, unlike the twitter and Instagram where the use of Hashtags are popular.
Do hashtags work on Facebook? That is the common question. Yeah…Nope; it depended on various factors, after conducting a thorough research, I have found out that it somehow fails to achieve the desired result. But some of the pro-social media professionals say that if used properly hashtags can really boost the connection and can let you win the new audience.
The primary purpose of the hashtag in Facebook is to make things more searchable and discoverable and connect everyone based on the available Facebook data, but do your audiences really want it? Unlike Facebook, the twitter connects each post to the global conversation forum. The Facebook only connects to the immediate connections, not to everyone. Now, you can decide where the hashtags stand on Facebook.
Facebook is currently facilitating more than one billion searches per day; yeah, right! There is some serious search going on. At least it cannot be called minimalist. If you search “Love” and “#Love”, you will get different results, which means the #hashtag has a certain objective. Do you and your audience understand its implication? If yes, the thumbs up and go ahead with, if not, then stay away from it.
The below mentioned are a few expert tips for using hashtags on your Facebook; however, you should remain open and experimental to understand the impact of the hashtags on the Facebook.
First, you have to understand your audience as said above; if your audiences are social media savvy, then you can use hashtags. If your audiences are conservative, then however you try, the hashtags do not just make sense to them. Do you understand your audience behavior and preferences? That is the first step to use hashtags properly on the Facebook.
It is a great idea to use hashtags for events and promotions, but over usage can have the adverse effect. Of course, you want to reach more audience, but going overboard would decline your post engagement. Avoid #using hashtags in between #sentence or with #everything, do you see how difficult it was to read the last sentence? You certainly, do want your brand to be known as a hashtag spammer.
While some suggest cross-promoting the hashtags with other platforms like Twitter and Instagram, the study suggests otherwise; I think you should comply with research data for oblivious reasons.
The tone of each social media greatly differ; while the Twitter users approach their posts with a sense of seriousness, the Instagram users are more fun oriented and light-hearted, and Facebook is more personalized; I think cross-linking does not make sense because the hashtags must be according to the audience preferences.
The best way to use hashtags on the Facebook is to keep it Industry specific and do not overuse them; after using the hashtag for a week look at the analytics and find out the engagement rate, if things look brighter, then carry on with it; otherwise, stop it.
Use tools such as Hashtagify.me to find the related hashtags to target precisely.
Make it a point that you use hashtags for the certain things, do not use them in all posts, it does not really make sense to search for new audiences or people at each post; you have to have brand communication too. remember, people are looking for clear and precise brand message, never try to complicate it by throwing unnecessary hashtags
You cannot just hashtag everything, not everything in this world has significance; so, make sure that you maintain a balance between what you want and what makes sense. You might want a thousand things, but do they really have significance?
Before you consider using hashtags, make sure that you understand the technical aspects of each platform. For instance, the hashtag search on the Pinterest does not make difference because it does not have specific objective relating to the hashtag.
Experimentation still remains as the best ways of finding what works for you and what does not, the Facebook insights can tell a lot about your post behavior and audience preference. I would suggest, you use the hashtags economically, look at the analytics and decide for yourself.
The bottom line is; you can go wrong, some people say that you cannot go wrong because people will skip the hashtag if they do not find it interesting; yeah, right, they can also skip your post too. The hashtags should be used only when your audiences understand them, not before that. Do not complicate things, keep it simple. Simplicity still remains alluring.
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