Find out how to use hashtags on social media to categorise your content and make it easily discoverable by others.
First things first, what is a hashtag?
A hashtag is a word of phase started with a '#' symbol, which is used on social media platforms like X, Facebook and Instagram to help you categorise your content and make it more easily discoverable by others. When you include a hashtag in your social media post, it becomes clickable, allowing users to see all other posts that have used the same hashtag.
How can they help me grow my audience?
- Discovery
Users can search for specific hashtags to discover new content related to their interests. If you include hashtags in your posts, you are more likely to increase the visibility of your posts and therefore reaching a wider audience. - Brand promotion
Brands often create customer hashtags to promote their products, campaigns or events. These branded hashtags can help generate buzz, encourage user-generated content, and facilitate community engagement. - Engagement
Using relevant hashtags can increase engagement on your social media posts by making them more discoverable to users who are interested in similar topics. However it's important to use hashtags strategically and avoid overuse or irrelevant hashtags, which can come across as spamming.
They are a powerful tool for organising, discovering and engaging with content on social media platforms, making them an essential component of any effective social media marketing strategy.
What are the different types of hashtags?
There are several types of hashtags, so to reduce the noise, we've included the ones we thing will be most useful for you. By understanding the different types of hashtags and how they are used, you'll be able to effectively incorporate hashtags into your social media strategy. This will help you increase visibility, engagement and reach on your platforms.
- Branded hashtags
Brands create these to help promote their products. These can often include the brand's name or slogan and are used to generate buzz and encourage user-generated content. You could use the name of your brand or facility such as #better, #walthamforestcouncil, #leyssportspark - Campaign hashtags
These are created for specific marketing campaigns or initiatives. They're used to centralise conversations around a particular theme, cause or event. You could use this for a sports event or gala that you're holding e.g #grangeparkgala - Trending hashtags
These hashtags are things that are currently popular or trending on social media platforms. They'll often reflect current events, stories or cultural trends. You can use this to join a larger conversations and increase the visibility of your posts. e.g #ThrowbackThursday - Industry-specific hashtags
You can use these within your specific industries or niches to categorise your content and connect with like-minded individuals or professionals. - Community hashtags
These are used to connect with a specific community or group of people who share common interests, hobbies or identities e.g #footballboots, #sportingcommunity - Location-based hashtags
You may find these particularly useful as your facilities will be liked to a place or community. These can by used to target your local audiences and promote events or attractions e.g #Ealing, #London, #Sevenoaks - User-generated content hashtags
You can encourage your users to create and share content using a specific hashtag. These will help curate user-generated content and help to foster community engagement, e.g #FootballFriday, #BadmintonBosses #Healthierandhappier
How do I know what hashtags to use?
You can start by doing some very simple hashtag research, which is important to optimise your social media marketing efforts and reaching your target audience effectively.
Step-by-step hashtag research guide:
- Understand your audience: Before diving into hashtag research, you need to have a clear understanding of your target audience. Start by writing a list of where they live, interests, pain points, and the topics they engage with on social platforms.
- Identify relevant keywords and phrases: Make a list of keywords and phrases related to your facility, services, sports and industry. When you're creating the list, make sure you think about locations close by and local communities you'll want to engage.
- Use hashtag tools: You can use the below tools to help you discover the relevant hashtags for your posts and audiences. You have some paid and free versions available to you. Alternatively, you can simply search on your chosen social media platform(s) under the 'tag' section and that will tell you how many people have posted using those hashtags.
- Analyse your competitors: Have a look at your hashtags your competitors are using in their social media posts. Identify which hashtags are popular within your industry and consider incorporating them into your own strategy.
- Check trending topics: Keep an eye on trending topics and hashtags on social media platforms like X (Twitter) and Instagram. Look for opportunities to join conversations around the sports or activities relevant to you in real-time. This works particularly well on X.
- Identify your niche and location-based hashtags: Using your earlier list, search for the local and location based hashtags that are relevant to your community and area. Have a look at the posts from other local businesses and sports communities to see what they're using and what engagement they're getting. By including local hashtags in your posts, you can increase the visibility of your content to users who are located in or interested in that particular area.
- Evaluate hashtag performance: Now for the fun part - you've compiled your list of hashtags, it's time to test them out in your posts and monitor their performance. Your key performance indicators are your engagement, reach and impressions to really measure how effective they are.
- Refine and iterate: Keeping up to date with relevant hashtags to maximise results is an ongoing process. Make sure that you are regularly monitoring the performance of your hashtags and adjusting your strategy accordingly. Try different things and refine your approach based on what gets the best result. We recommend reviewing them every 2-3 months.
How many hashtags should you use?
We're always this key question! This entirely depends on the platform you're posting on, what you're trying to achieve and the preferences of your audience.
X (Twitter): One or two hashtags per tweet
You have to be mindful that you only have 280 characters per tweet. Whilst you could theoretically include up to 280 characters' worth of hashtags, we generally recommend that you keep your posts more concise.
Instagram: 9 - 15 hashtags per post
Whilst instagram does allow for up to 30 hashtags per post, it's not always necessary or effective. Research shows that your peak engagement will be with 9-15 hashtags per post. Make sure that you're keeping the hashtags you do use relevant and specific to your content and audience.
Facebook: One or two hashtags per post
Facebook does support hashtag, they're not as effective or common as on X or Instagram. You can include one or two relevant hashtags and that will be sufficient - be careful not to use too many as you could come across as 'spammy'.
LinkedIn: One or two hashtags per post
LinkedIn is similar to Facebook in that it supports hashtags but they're not as widely used. Make sure that you focus on using professional and industry-specific hashtags that resonate with your target audience.
TikTok: Up to 100 characters' worth of hashtags
Whilst TikTok allows for up to 100 characters worth of hashtags per video, you may not need or want to use all of that allocation. This is where our experimentation comes in. Try different quantities and different hashtags to see what works best for your content and audience on these platforms.
Overall, you want to make sure that you're focussing on quality over quantity. By completing the hashtag research you should have a strong strategy in place for which hashtags are relevant for your target audience to be able to maximise the reach you achieve with your social posts. Avoid overloading your posts with too many hashtags, sticking to our guidelines above, experiment with the type and number of hashtags you're including in your posts. Finally, make sure that you're monitoring the performance of your posts to understand what works best for your social media strategy.