For small businesses, the use is often surrounded by alot of misconception or ‘following’ what other people are doing, unfortunately because of this, many of the #hashtags in social media are increasingly being used incorrectly and instead of using them to benefit your business status are actually hindering you!
One post we saw recently demonstrates this (we have obviously removed the user name):
“Going to see a #client in #Derby who is looking for #social #media #help from #meeting them #networking last week #justsaying
From the outside perspective, this is not only annoying but also very unproductive and a bad example being portrayed to other small companies who will no doubt follow suit in this type of activity…
What this post is really saying through hashtags is:
#Derby
#social
#media
#help
#meeting
#networking
#justsaying
The tags are searchable individually, not as a whole sentence, so as opposed to this post being targeted and specific, what it is really doing is the opposite and dramatically narrowing your search availability and therefore exposure… why would you want that?
So the next time you think about using a #hashtag in your Tweet – be specific!
Hopefully this blog has given you some insights into how you ‘should’ be using #hashtags on social media sites, and how you can make them effective so that your time is positive and well spent.
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