With the exponentially increasing amount of posts being published on social media platforms each year, it’s becoming more and more difficult to gain exposure on your content.

Knowing how to properly use hashtags in 2019 has become an essential skill for anyone looking to stand out from the crowd. That’s why we’ve compiled a short list of things we believe every social media user should know before getting started.

What Are Hashtags?

Hashtags are a type of metadata commonly seen through most social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and so on. They are illustrated as a pound sign (#) followed by a word or phrase and can be written either on posts or in the comments section. When looking up a certain tag, you will be exposed to a collection of posts by people who have used the tag, thus, making hashtags are a great way to increase engagement on your posts and reach a new audience that isn’t already following you.

Pro tip: keep them short, overly long hashtags can seem unprofessional and reduce the appeal of your post.

How To Use Them

See What’s Trending

Stay up to date with popular hashtags so you can use them on your posts and expose yourself to a wider audience. These tags are commonly used, but also commonly searched for, which means you are likely to gather a couple of extra views on your posts by using them!

Sites such as https://hashtagify.me/popular/en can be used as a great tool to discover trending hashtags.

Unfortunately, one size doesn’t fit all. Using popular hashtags isn’t always the solution and can be less favorable for smaller accounts. Popular tags are sometimes overwhelmed with posts and make for a more competitive environment where smaller accounts may find it difficult to strive. The next tip will help find a balance based on your account size.

Incorporate Less Common Tags

When searching a certain hashtag, two categories come up. The first being “Top” which will show a collection of the most popular posts that have used the searched hashtag, and the second being “Recent” which will show posts that have most recently used the hashtags.

For bigger accounts, strictly using popular hashtags isn’t much of a concern as they can often appear in the “Top” section and gather the exposure they desired. However, small pages are unlikely to make it to the popular posts section and can easily get lost in the recent section by the high volume of posts.

That being said, using less-common hashtags can give smaller accounts a better chance to reach the “Top” section which they aim for, and stay higher up on the grid in the recent section for a prolonged period.

Try to use a variety of trending, as well as less-popular hashtags on your posts in order to maximize the amount of engagement.

Use The Right Amount Of Tags

Each social media platform has its own set of algorithms and the number of hashtags you should use will vary. More tags aren’t always better. Research has shown that using too many tags can lead to less engagement. The numbers listed below represent the optimal number of tags to be used on posts in order to gain the most exposure:

• Instagram: 9 – 11
• Twitter: 1 – 2
• Facebook: 1 – 2
• Pinterest: 1 – 2
• LinkedIn: 1 – 2

Do you have any tips or tricks when it comes to using hashtags that we may have missed? If so, let us know in the comments section below!