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Influencers have become leaders in digital marketing, they are no longer just ordinary people sharing their experiences on social media. They have shaped culture and the economy. As businesses, we look to them influencers to understand how to expand our virtual reach and create content that goes viral. What is it that helps these individuals create businesses out of social media? Are they paying to increase their follower reach? Are they paying for Ads? Or is it the content? Apart from buying followers, it’s a mixture of all of these things along with a strong hashtag strategy.
Why Buying Followers Doesn’t work:
Though buying followers will make it seem like a lot of people support you, your organic audience will quickly realize that you’ve bought those followers. An account with 4 or 5k + audience, but only around a one or two hundred likes on a post and little to no comments showing signs of fake followers. Social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter are more focused on engagement rather than number of followers. Though having more a large number of followers is important, having an engaged audience is more important.
How to up your Hashtag Game:
Focusing on hashtags is a great way to expand your reach beyond your existing followers and spreading awareness of your brand. To being your hashtag strategy, keep in mind the following:
- Know your Audience – As with all marketing strategies, knowing your audience in important. In this case, study how your audience in behaving on social media. Take a look at how they are interacting with hashtags. This will help you determine the types of hashtags to use and the quantity at which to use them.
- Research Influencers – Almost every field has influencers who lead that market. It’s important to know how they are gaining attention. Scroll through their posts and see which hashtags they are using. This is a great base for your overall strategy. Find hashtags that will relate to most of your posts and have them recorded to use every time you are content writing. This will be a great base for your hashtag strategy.
- Each Post is Unique – Given the above, don’t think that once you have a base list of hashtags that your strategy is set. Keep in mind that each post is different and relates to different hashtags. So don’t just copy a list of 30 hashtags to each post. Instead, you will have to do some research for each post. A good way to do that is just type in the key words from your content on Google. Than, go on different social media platforms and see how well each hashtag is performing. You should have a mix of hashtags, some hashtags will be have followers in the millions and some will be in thousands. That is ok.
The bigger hashtags will expand your overall reach, while the more targeted hashtags will target your exact audience. This will attract an audience that will be interested in your content and engage with your content more.
- Digital Media is Always Changing – Keep an eye on change algorithms and new trends. Digital media is constantly changing, a strategy that is works one day, will be outdated before you know it. Continue to stay connected with trends and studying your competitors.
Benefits of a Hashtag Strategy:
Hashtags are a great way to increase your organic reach, saving your marketing budget. It is a free way to expand your reach beyond your existing network by connecting to people that are interested in those hashtags. By using relevant hashtags, you create a link between your content and everyone else searching for that topic on social media using that hashtags. That is why it is important to use hashtags with a large following, but is appropriate in regards to your content.
Good content and strong graphics only go so far, but along side a strong hashtag strategy they can reach a much larger audience. A digital marketing strategy is not complete without taking into consideration how hashtags will play a role in it. Hashtags can be a great way to kickstart your social media accounts before putting money towards ads. Take a moment to understand how hashtags will interact with your content and expand its reach.
