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Sep 17, 2024
A sharp hashtag strategy is your gateway to discoverability. Hashtags help categorize your content, connecting it to relevant communities and conversations and fostering brand exclusivity.
But if you manage multiple social media accounts across different platforms, how do you ensure your strategy is on point for each?
Worry not. In this article, I’ve gathered everything you need to know about building a stellar hashtag strategy for all platforms. Learn the rules for each major network, how many hashtags you need, and where to put them for the best results.
Let’s go!
Hashtags are more than just trendy symbols we may or may not have strong feelings about. I mean, I know some social media enjoyers find hashtags outdated or borderline irritating.
But that’s because creators and brands often use them wrong.
Using the right hashtags strategically can significantly improve your presence on social media. On the other hand, if you have other goals, you can use hashtags in various ways to accomplish different things.
Nowadays, you can even try a free hashtag generator to help you find the most effective tags for your content.
Here’s how to use hashtags depending on your end goal:
Hashtags have been the ultimate engagement drivers ever since Instagram was feed-only — and they still are.
Jumping on a trending hashtag is like plugging into an ongoing conversation, ensuring your voice is heard in the bustling chat. This visibility cranks up engagement by attracting more likes, shares, and comments and helps you reel in new followers to boost your brand’s social media presence.
Although we’re moving away from #like4like and dozens of Instagram hashtags in the post caption, you can still drive relevant traffic to your content by using one of the trending hashtags.
Hashtags act like beacons for specific topics or interests, making your content discoverable to a broader audience.
A comprehensive hashtag strategy puts you on the map and helps you tap into new audiences. You can add hashtags to your captions when scheduling social media posts for any platform.
Some social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter allow users to follow relevant hashtags. Using specific hashtags, you can put your brand in front of the people actively searching for content related to those tags.
Consistent use of branded hashtags can establish a stronger connection with the brand. This repetitive visibility helps embed your brand into the social consciousness, making it more memorable and easily recognized.
Use a branded hashtag for:
Besides building brand awareness, branded hashtags create an exclusive space for your campaigns and content, making it easier for followers to access all related posts in one place. This exclusivity can foster a feeling of community among users and strengthen brand loyalty.
It also helps them navigate your content better. For instance, the fashion brand Levi’s successfully runs the Instagram hashtag #LiveInLevis. Their customers add it to photos of themselves wearing Levi’s denim, creating a community around it.
Hashtags are pivotal in rallying support for social causes. It’s a concise yet powerful way to demonstrate what your brand stands for and join the conversation like Spotify did with #TransDayOfVisibility.
The relationship between social issues and brands is a tricky territory. On one hand, customers want to buy from a brand that shares their values and views. On the other hand, some want brands to stay out of major cultural areas.
Either way, aligning your brand with social-related hashtags is a good way to emphasize your brand’s social responsibility and connect with different audiences.
Add a relevant hashtag to give your social media post more context. Marking #ads and #sponsored content helps you stay transparent and fulfill the audience’s need for an honest review and the partner’s request for integration.
This also works for a more situational context. Hashtags like #tbt (Throwback Thursday) or #latergram indicate the content is not recent, while slightly customized hashtags like #coachella2024 help separate events.
Whether you target Instagram or other social media platforms that use hashtags, a proper hashtag strategy is a must. Are you using too many hashtags? Too few? Too general? Too niche? Your strategy will answer these questions.
Here’s how to build a strategy that will help you use hashtags effectively on any platform.
Understanding your target audience is the cornerstone of any successful hashtag strategy.
By researching your audience’s interests, behaviors, and social media habits, you can establish a good set of hashtags. Make a note of popular hashtags they look for (e.g., #FitnessMotivation, #Cardio, #Sport) and more niche hashtags — for instance, #YogaForRunners or #PreNatalYoga.
Use tools like Instagram Explore, audience insights, or third-party hashtag analytics platforms to identify your most popular hashtags.
To zero in on the most relevant hashtags for your posts, keep tabs on what’s buzzing in your niche. Pay attention to specific hashtags your competitors and relevant influencers are using. This is a good source of information, especially if you want to check on a very niche hashtag.
Also, don’t forget to peek at trending hashtags. Jumping into a hot topic can boost your visibility big time, so make sure to act on top hashtags that align with your social media strategy.
Instagram Explore or third-party apps can help you track these trends. It’s all about staying connected and relevant, so your content keeps popping up where it counts!
Instagram hashtag generator in Planable
Now that you have a solid list of hashtags and relevant keywords, it’s time to put them to work.
Mix and match popular hashtags your audience loves with those directly related to your brand. This strategy helps you cast a wider net while ensuring your posts resonate with the right crowd and get your brand on the radar.
Integrating popular and niche hashtags tailored to your audience’s preferences increases your chances of engagement. It helps your content reach users who are most likely to appreciate and interact with it.
Think of it as bridging the gap between being seen and being relevant.
Content collaboration in Planable’s feed view.
It’s vital to track your hashtags’ performance to identify which ones truly resonate with your audience.
Look for patterns in your analytics — do your top posts frequently include the same hashtags? If so, these tags are likely your top hashtags. Prioritize those in future posts to increase engagement. Add a few new hashtags every now and then to test them alongside the successful ones.
Regular analysis helps you spot which hashtags consistently perform well, allowing you to refine your strategy and focus on what works best. You can leverage hashtag-specific social media analytics tools to automate this analysis.
Top performing posts in Planable’s analytics dashboard.
Hashtags work differently on every social media network, mostly due to different algorithms and ways to categorize content. While Instagram relies on hashtags heavily, LinkedIn doesn’t differentiate keywords and hashtags much.
Thus, to ensure you take the most out of hashtag mechanics, your hashtag strategy should differ, too, depending on what platform you’re aiming for. Let’s give each major social media platform a more detailed look:
When it comes to an effective Instagram hashtag strategy, hashtagging is less about hitting a magic number and more about finding the sweet spot.
Instagram lets you go wild with up to 30 hashtags but recommends creators keep it cool with only 3 to 5 hashtags per post — enough to get you noticed without spamming your post caption.
However, some research shows that you can use 10 or even up to 20 hashtags on Instagram and still be okay. I’d say more hashtags are better than no hashtags — after all, it is the ultimate key to discoverability on the platform.
Ultimately, it all comes down to testing how many hashtags work in your particular case.
Here are a couple of hashtag tips for your Instagram marketing strategy:
The approach to Facebook hashtags differs slightly. Facebook doesn’t rely on hashtags as much as Instagram or Twitter do, so using multiple hashtags looks more spammy — it’s just not the modus operandi for this platform.
The optimal number of hashtags for Facebook posts is 1-2. Using too many hashtags can actually decrease engagement on Facebook, and no one wants that.
Here are the Facebook hashtag basics:
Hashtags on Instagram surely play a more significant role than on Facebook, but you can still leverage a few hashtags when scheduling your next Facebook post with Planable, wink-wink.
On Twitter, where hashtags were actually born, less is definitely more. Twitter uses hashtags to help people follow trending topics and navigate the platform, so over-tagged posts are often sent to spam immediately.
The optimal number of hashtags to use is 1-2 per Tweet — just enough to sort your content into one of the interests’ buckets.
Here are some tips on Twitter hashtags:
(By the way, Twitter is X now — rebranding can happen to the best of us. Hashtags are still core mechanics on the platform, though.)
So, next time you schedule tweets, be sure to add at least one relevant hashtag!
TikTok hashtags work more similarly to those on Instagram and Twitter. TikTok uses words and keyphrases with a hashtag symbol in front of them, such as #TikTokTrends, to help you boost your visibility and enter specific categories (like #GameTok, #BookTok, or #SkincareTips).
There are no specific hashtag limits, but 3-5 per post is the sweet spot. This way, you still have enough space for an engaging caption when scheduling TikToks.
Here are a couple of TikTok hashtag strategy tips:
Pinterest hashtags are somewhat optional. The platform can categorize your content based on keywords in the description and title. However, hashtags still make it easier for users to discover your pins.
While Pinterest allows up to 20 hashtags, using 3 to 8 relevant hashtags per pin seems optimal. Pay special attention to tagging related topics when you schedule pins.
Here’s how to fine-tune your Pinterest hashtag use:
Hashtags on LinkedIn are a bit of a mixed bag. Once seen as a golden ticket to boost your content’s reach, they’re now more about smart categorization and enhancing discoverability. Algorithm changes, surprise-surprise.
Despite a shift in their direct impact on reach, sticking to 3 to 5 hashtags remains your best bet, according to recent studies and LinkedIn’s own advice.
Here are a couple of LinkedIn hashtag tips based on the 2024 algorithm research:
In the grand scheme, while hashtags on LinkedIn might not skyrocket your post’s visibility as they once might have, they still play a crucial role in how your content is discovered and categorized. Schedule your next LinkedIn post using one of the popular hashtags your audience follows.
YouTube is all about SEO, and hashtags play an essential role in it — if not for actual users, then for the algorithm.
YouTube hashtags help the platform better understand what your video is about and recommend it to a more specific audience. So, when you publish or schedule YouTube videos, make sure to add your top hashtags relevant to your topic for the sake of your organic traffic.
The golden rule of YouTube hashtags is 3-5 tags per video. There’s no limit, but if you add more than 60, YouTube will ignore all of your hashtags. All. Of. Them.
Here are two tips for your TouTube hashtag strategy:
Hashtags help you boost your discoverability on social media and allow your followers to navigate around your content better.
Some platforms, like Instagram, are more hashtag-driven, while others, like Facebook, are less inclined to use them — but either way, a solid hashtag strategy that considers the peculiarities of each network will amplify your social media results.
And if you’re looking for a way to automate and ease content management on each of your networks, try Planable. Scheduling content (with relevant hashtags, of course) has never been easier. Grab 50 free posts today and start creating!
Content marketer with a background in journalism; digital nomad, and tech geek. In love with blogs, storytelling, strategies, and old-school Instagram. If it can be written, I probably wrote it.
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