Hashtag

How it works

When someone taps a hashtag or searches for it, the network shows them the posts that carry it. That way a post also reaches people who do not follow the account. Its role differs by network:

• Instagram and TikTok — people search and follow hashtags, so they carry the most weight there.
• LinkedIn — hashtags mark the topic of a post, and people can follow topics.
• Facebook — used less often, with little effect on how many people see a post.

Example

A nail salon in Plovdiv put #beauty and #nails under every photo. Those hashtags hold millions of posts, and the salon’s disappeared within seconds. It switches to a few local, precise ones — #nailsplovdiv, #gelpolishplovdiv — and one of its own, #salonluna, which it asks clients to add under their photos. The local hashtags show it to people in the city, and its own collects client photos in one place, which the salon shares with their permission.

Why it matters for a business

A hashtag helps when there are few of them and they are chosen for the audience. Twenty generic hashtags under a post look like spam and bring no extra views. Three to five work better: one for the city or the niche, one for the topic and one of your own for a campaign or the brand. Your own hashtag is also useful for customer content: it shows what people publish about you.

What to ask

• Which hashtags does our audience follow and search, rather than which are popular?
• Do we have our own hashtag, and do customers use it?
• Do hashtags bring views from people outside our followers (in the post’s statistics)?
• Do we use the same hashtags on every network, although they work differently?

Which hashtags to use and when is decided in our social media management.