The Importance of Hashtags

If you want your business to get noticed when using social media, it is vitally important that you start to incorporate hashtags when sharing your content online. At fatBuzz we use them to help get your content to the right audience, and in this post we will share with you some hints and tips for using hashtags.

Now some would say that hashtags are just part of the “online lingo”. Which is of course true, we have all seen #NoFilter or #Selfie being used online. But the hashtag is much more than a modern colloquialism, it is an incredibly useful tool for connecting your business with the people you want to engage with.

With most major social networks now supporting the use of hashtags, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram, there has never been a better time to start using them!

Hashtags will serve as a hyperlink to other users on social media sites that search for the term.

If you start to think of hashtags as a conversation topic, they will allow people who are interested in the discussion to be able to quickly identify and engage with you.

For example, if you were wanting to engage about the Oscars this year, using the hashtag #Oscars2015 has a better chance of being seen by those interested in the awards as they can simply search for the hashtag and see your post.

In using hashtags you will be able to expose your content to a wider audience as you are channeling information to the right people. However, using them correctly is what can truly boost your business’s chance of engagement.

One key factor in using hashtags is to keep it brief. Overlong and overdetailed hashtags simply won’t catch on. You want yours to be a clear and concise summary of the topic/event you are talking about.

You also shouldn’t be using more than two hashtags at a time. Studies have shown that when you use more than two hashtags, engagement drops by 17% on average. A quality summary will always be better than a high quantity when it comes to hashtagging.

If we look at the Oscars example again, picture yourself searching for a term to see who has won best actor. Are you more likely to look for #WhoHasWonTheOscarForBestActor or #OscarWinners?

It is that simple, and getting yourself into this habit will make sure that your hashtags are relevant and easy to find. If you stick to using keywords in yours it will make for a much more engaging hashtag.

Remember as well to use existing hashtags to connect with your audience. If your business is attending an event, look out for official tags and if you think they are relevant - use them! They are a great method of marketing yourself within an existing group.

We have covered the basics to help you in using hashtags on social media. The next time you post an update, a blog or tweet, we hope you try some of our tips and see for yourself how helpful using a simple hashtag can be. #GoodLuck!

For more helpful hints on how to market your business follow fatBuzz on our social media channels below, check out our QuickBuzz videos on YouTube and of course stay posted right here on our blog.

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Do #UWANTIT?

If you follow the fatBuzz blog, you might have read Graeme's post about Twitter infiltrating the music industry?

Either the use of the hashtag or the half naked girls in Robin Thicke's music video Blurred Lines helped make the song such a huge success - and now the advertising industry are following suit.

Beats by Dre have just recently launched a new product called 'Beats Pill' and have joined together with RadioShack to create an advert which certainly attracts your attention with the scantily clad girls from Thicke's Blurred Lines music video dancing around with a rather suggestive looking speaker...

The hashtags used in the ad are #UWANTIT and #BEATSPILL, and with a quick search on Twitter, you will literally see hundreds of tweets about the Beats Pill. The use of the hashtags in this ad have certainly created a buzz about the product online and have helped raise awareness about it.

We think this advert further highlights not only the power of Twitter but the power of the hashtag.

 

 Let us know what you think of it? Is it a good example of traditional and new media integrating?

Twitter Infiltrating Music Videos

In the world of social media, Twitter is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools. What started off as a platform for people to communicate what they’re doing to each other has become a massively successful business tool.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter has also infiltrated the music industry, and fatBuzz Account Manager, Graeme, has noticed a song currently riding high in the charts that has a rather interesting video accompanying it.

Being a keen music enthusiast (and DJ in some of Glasgow’s premier nightclubs), Graeme decided to share his thoughts with you...

I’m sure we’ve all seen TV shows embrace Twitter. Quite often, you’ll see a hashtag appear at the bottom of your screen during a show, hoping to encourage viewers to hop onto their computer/smartphone/tablet and get the show ‘trending’.

I suppose it’s a form of advertising, and a way of justifying the price advertisers pay to advertise during these shows - or even the prices brands will pay for product placement.

It now seems this phenomenon has made its way into the music industry.

First we had The Voice judge, Will.I.Am, release a track with Justin Bieber, entitled #thatPOWER, but someone’s decided to take it a little bit further.

Now, I’m not sure if many of you who pay attention to today’s popular music, or the Official Charts for that matter, however anyone who does, will know of the song I’m about to discuss.

Currently, the number one song in the UK charts is Blurred Lines, by Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and rapper, T.I. Now, I’ll be honest with you, I love this song.

The video for the song (which you can view below) features the three artists dancing and messing about, accompanied by young, scantily-clad females. Interestingly though, they’re also surrounded by a regular series of hashtags; #THICKE and #BLURREDLINES.

Although there are only two hashtags used in the video, what I found staggering was the amount of times they appear in the video.

I actually sat and counted (outwith work hours, of course...) as many as five hashtags in the first 30 seconds of the video, with the entire video displaying a total of 30.

The Blurred Lines hashtag only appears three times - it’s the RnB singer’s hashtagged surname that appears most often. At the end of the video, it’s even simply displayed on a black screen, making sure viewers are left in no doubt as to who sang the song, and how to talk about him on Twitter.

Now, as Mashable explains, hashtags don't traditionally appear in music videos, especially as big or as frequently as #Thicke appears in Blurred Lines. So, why now?

It could simply be a case of his management deploying a pretty crude way of building his Twitter following. Or it could be a ploy to raise awareness of Thicke being ‘back’ with new material, and more importantly, to get his name trending in the run-up to the release of his new album.

I’m not even sure if these hashtags have helped him gain his number one status in the charts - his first ever UK number one - but put it this way, they certainly didn’t hurt his chances, did they?

We’d love to know what you all think of Thicke’s use of hashtags. Was it a social media success? Have you seen any other good examples of artists using social media in music videos?

Let us know on Twitter, and heck, you might even want to use the hashtag #THICKE!

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