Hashtags are imperative to continue growing a company’s and personal brands’ social media reach, engagement and following, but once upon a time, a hashtag was part of programming language and it was a different type of symbol.

How did the hashtag go from part of the programming language to one of the widest used symbols on social media? 

A tweet in 2007. From there, his blog was published on Twitter and others in the industry were intrigued and said, “I support the hashtag convention.” And the rest of it was history. 

 Fast-forward to 2020, hashtags are an integral part of all social media marketing strategies that are put into place by marketing firms Austin Texas! 

OMG Austin is of the leading marketing firms Austin Texas, and our clients often ask, “Do we really need hashtags?” “How many is too many?” “Why are there so many on Instagram?” 

To answer these questions, we needed to explain a bit more about these questions. This is all about hashtags. 

First question, “Do we really need hashtags?” 

The answer to this question is yes, you do need hashtags. Hashtags are a way to label social media content that is being shared to easily find new updates. It allows for those who are searching for that type of content to find you easily. It also helps with a new following, engagement and reach of all social media posts that are shared. 

Second question, “How many is too many?” 

Well, this depends on the social media platform that your company is utilizing. Each social media platform has its own set of “rules” and common practices that all social media marketers or consultants all follow in the digital marketing industry. 

Twitter: It is common to use no more than two or three hashtags per social media post. With character restrictions of 280 on each post and Twitter themselves releasing their own guidelines to follow, research also shows that the more hashtags on a Twitter post it shows a decline in reach. 

LinkedIn: While there is no limit on hashtags on LinkedIn, our experts suggest to use no more than four hashtags per post. Adding a single hashtag on a LinkedIn social media post can increase its reach by 80 percent. 

Facebook: On Facebook, the average number of hashtags used is about two to three, but with Facebook, hashtags are a bit different. You want to utilize the top trending and most common hashtags on its platform. A great example of this is #SuperBowlSunday, #NationalPizzaDay, #Pizza and #SocialMedia. These are top hashtags for national holidays and events and for content in the realm of pizza and social media. 

Instagram: While Twitter was the first social media platform that launched the usage of hashtags, Twitter takes the win with how many you can use! On Instagram, our experts recommend using no less than nine and no more than 30 hashtags. Yes, Instagram is all about hashtags and we love it! 

Now, with those ground rules set in place, why so many on Instagram? 

Third question, “Why are there so many on Instagram?”

When we tell clients about the number of hashtags that we use on Instagram, there is a bit of panic that happens. “Is that too many?” “Why are there so many?” Yes, this is pretty normal to have this many hashtags on an Instagram post. This is because Instagram’s algorithm is all about engagement and the content shared within those hashtags. 

And the more engagement a post gets on Instagram (likes, shares and comments), the better it does overall and continues to show on timelines. The thing with having that many hashtags on a post is that they have to be relevant to the content being shared and who will be viewing that content. 

Hashtags are so critical on social media platforms because they help to organically promote content to a larger target audience, create conversations and share information and content that those audiences want to engage and consume. 

That is really the most important part. A hashtag was created to share like-minded conversations with social media users! Always remember that when utilizing hashtags on social media and with your company’s social media marketing.