Hashtags - we know them from Twitter and Instagram. We use them every day, but do we do it effectively and correctly?

There are strange examples of hashtag use (often incorrect). In addition, hashtags have been out of Twitter for a long time. Nowadays, they are very common on Instagram, and the website itself offers many opportunities to use them.

Skillful handling of hashtags will not only allow us to easily establish a conversation with the recipients, but also help us acquire new subscribers or traffic to our profile.

What are hashtags?

Hashtags are words or short phrases preceded by #. On social media is a "link"- However, this is not communication in the full sense of the word. Hashtags work because links to any discussions or materials marked with a specific hashtagwithin the chosen social platform. What does this mean? For example:

• Enter Twitter with the search tab #darthvader and you'll find all messages and discussions on Twitter that mention this character. Of course, you can narrow your search with filters
• Log in to Instagram using the #starwars search engine, click on the Tags tab, and you will see all Instagram posts where users have used the #starwars hashtag. At the top, on the left, in a distinctive circle, you will find Insta Stories with this hashtag added to them.

Where did hashtags come from?

A lot of people think that hashtags were created thanks to Twitter. They appeared on this platform in 2007. It was Google employee Chris Messin who suggested organizing conversations using the # symbol preceding the topic of conversation.

Many Twitter users liked his suggestion and started using the idea for group discussions on Twitter. Hashtags have now become a natural part of communication not only on Twitter but also on Instagram. Despite this, their history actually comes from... iRC, where they were used to label channels.

Hashtags are currently popular on Instagram, but they can also be found on Facebook or Linkedin.

Hashtags and their types

You don't need to be a big company or a social media specialist to create your own hashtags. Anyone can create their own #hashtag. When you look at hashtags in news feeds, you can easily see that they differ from each other in some way.

Here are examples of hashtags:

•  hashtag content - reflect their original function and are used for group conversations on specific topics (for example, #kawa #selfie #girl)
• local hashtags - allow you to find content related to selected locations. Useful when, for example, you are traveling to a new city or on vacation and want to check what it looks like through the eyes of an Instagrammer, for example: #sanfrancisco #NY #singapore
• product hashtags - which would mean entries for photos or conversations about specific items, such as #macbook #iphone #pixel
• company hashtags - Hashtags created to promote specific brands and their activities on the Internet, for example, #apple #google #lexus
• Hashtags for marketing and social campaigns - created for the purpose of such an action. An example is the hashtag #teampixel, which is used to label photos taken with a Google Pixel phone. The campaign was aimed at conveying the message that this equipment allows you to take really good photos anywhere.

How to create hashtags?

Hashtags are created in a trivial way simply add the phrase after the # stamp you want to change to the hashtag. Nevertheless, we often come across hashtags (or rather, attempts to create them) that contain errors that prevent their proper use.

What should you keep in mind when creating hashtags?

• Don't separate the phrase you want to create a hashtag with a space with #! Separating these two elements with a space will make the hashtag simply inactive. Example:  
• #GoodHashtag - WRONG. # Invalid hashtag - WRONG

• For longer hashtags consisting of several words, start each word with a capital letter. It's simply a matter of readability. If it's a two-part hashtag (e.g., #sanfrancisco), you can still see the capital letters because the hashtag is legible. #GeekCatTeam- GOOD # geekcatteam - WRONG

Hashtags and underlines - yes or no?

Hashtags usually do not use underscores. For this reason, in complex hashtags, a capital letter is added at the beginning of each word to avoid using additional characters to separate them. This is unnecessary.

Remember that hashtags were largely formed on Twitter, where until very recently there was a fairly strict character limit per post. This forced the creation of short tags, and splitting words into a longer hashtag with a capitalized letter was simply more practical than doing it with underscores, which used up additional characters in such a limited limit.

 In our opinion, these habits still work. We often find hashtags in two versions - with and without underscores (for example, #ukrainegirl and #ukraine_girl), and the underscored versions are often much more popular.

Hashtags - where and how to use them?

When it comes to hashtags, we naturally have two platforms - Twitter and Instagram. We're not going to write too much about Twitter - you have a brief history above. We use them in tweets, and they are one of the most important elements of communication in this environment. However, when it comes to Instagram, there are a few things to highlight.

Instagram allows us to add hashtags in several places:

• in messages
• in the profile (bio)
• in Insta Story

Hashtags on Instagram

No. 1 Hashtags in Insta Story. If you search for information on Instagram using a hashtag, you will find photos in the search results, and in the top section in the white box, you will see the search hashtag from the "Follow" CTA. On the left, you will see a distinctive circle with stories containing this particular hashtag.

No. 2 Hashtags in the profile- they were intended to serve an informational function. When you click on such a hashtag in a profile, you are simply taken to the posts marked with that hashtag. Unfortunately, there are no tabs (at least not yet) with profiles tagged with # data. Similarly, you can tag other profiles in your bio (using @). Then the person tagged in the bio profile receives a notification and can approve or reject it (when they reject it, the "link" in our bio is simply inactive).

No. 3 Hahtags in publications- A lot has already been said. The most important thing to keep in mind when using hashtags on Instagram:

• you can use up to 30 hashtags in your post- Instagram has introduced a restriction that simply does not allow you to use more tags. If you add more than 30 hashtags to a post, none will appear in the description after the post is published.
• optimal number of hashtags in the post ranges from 11 to 15, but we encourage you to just experiment with the number and see what works best for you. Test, test, and test again
• use hashtags that are relevant to a particular publication- that is, related to what the photo and description content represent. No one likes spammy tags! Instagram puts a lot of emphasis on the relevance of photos and hashtags. If you add hashtags to your photos that don't reflect what's in the photo, you risk your photo going unnoticed among what the hashtag should actually reflect
• hashtags should not be too big - you have to choose your maximum hashtag size: account size and level of follower engagement. So you may find that your maximum threshold is 250,000 and it could be a million - who knows, you should check it out. To check, turn on your Instagram business profile to have access to traffic analytics under photos - and test. It's worth mixing hahstags - bigger ones (i.e., say, several hundred thousand posts) with smaller ones (tens of thousands of posts) and even micro ones (from a few to several tens of thousands of posts, in the case of small Instagram accounts) and check what gives us the best results
• do not use the same hashtags - Instagram doesn't like copy-and-paste posts. Be sure to try a different set under each photo
• watch out for banned hashtags- some hashtags get "banned" on Instagram when, for example, they deal with eroticism, pornography, topics that contradict the rules of the Instagram community, etc. What does this mean in practice? If you mark a photo with such a # ban, it will not be displayed under this hashtag, as well as under the hashtags you put in the description.

Hashtags on Facebook - do you use them or not?

Hashtags are mainly used on Twitter and Instagram, so we don't see the point in using them on other platforms. Hashtags on Twitter and Instagram are a natural element of communication. Search engines and filtering work very well on these social networks, which allows us to find the right topic quickly and easily. Here, hashtags play a role not only in finding messages, but also in reaching a wide audience.

In our opinion, using them on Facebook is a bit pointless. Why? First of all, Facebook's search engine itself doesn't work very well when searching for content tagged with certain hashtags. This directly leads to a decrease in the visibility of posts that use them.

If you are considering using hashtags on Facebook, we would suggest adding them, for example, to promote events or campaigns, only as a support (hoping that someone will find your hashtag in the Facebook search engine). However, remember that their number is limited to a maximum of two per post. And most importantly, check what you write.

Hashtags - how to use them?

1. Use hashtags to start a conversation - Hashtags are designed to help users of social media sites find topics and comments for ongoing discussions. Use them to start a conversation with people who are following a topic close to your heart.
2. Remember the right number of hashtags in your post - that too many is not healthy. While Twitter users prefer to use multiple hashtags in a single post, Instagram has even more. However, keep in mind the limitations - you can use up to 30 hashtags in an Instagram post - if you enter more, they simply won't appear after the photo is posted.
3. Use them wisely - Do not spam!
4. Remember to use only hashtags that are relevant to the content of your message - Adding popular and frequently searched hashtags is appealing, but it's certainly not welcomed by your recipients. If you upload a photo of your book to Instagram, add relevant hashtags. #Selfie #girl #fproofn #ootd, although very popular, can be annoying for people searching for this type of photo when they come across your photo book.

Hashtags - how not to use them?

1. Don't create hashtags that are too long - a whole sentence turned into a hashtag will be hard to remember and hard to read. Social media likes hashtags that are short, specific, and to the point.
2. Do not add inappropriate hashtags to collect statistics. Of course, hashtags used in this way are not prohibited, but they are certainly not welcome.
3. Do not use symbols - any punctuation or symbols added to the hashtag (of course, except for # at the beginning) will not be included. As a result, only the preceding phrase will be a hashtag. Therefore, if you add hashtags to your posts, avoid all symbols in them, such as +, @, &.