Are you #dazedandconfused by hashtags in social media? If you’re nodding yes, you’re not alone. Hashtags are often used excessively and incorrectly across social platforms—to the point that many of you have disregarded their potential effectiveness in your social marketing efforts. However, the fact is that hashtags can work like magnets to attract people to your posts. It’s worthwhile to hash out a strategy because these tags can be potent devices for capturing the attention of your target markets.
The social media hashtag is fundamentally a search tool. It was born as a way for people who have a shared interest in a topic to easily find and follow posts about that topic within social platforms. The first hashtag was used on Twitter way back in 2007 (get the story on hashtag history over on my blog; see link at end of article) to make it easy for people attending an event to see all the tweets shared by their fellow attendees. The concept worked well, and over time, use of these tagged search terms took hold.