Creating a hashtag is very simple and there are only two things to remember when using them. 1.] All hashtags start with the # symbol. And 2.] No matter how many words in a hashtag it should appear as one continuous word with no spaces. For example the hashtag for Weight Loss would be #weightloss

When choosing a word to make into a hashtag you want to pick one that is relevant to what you are posting. Remember, a hashtag is like a popular keyword that others are searching for. It does not need to be, nor should it be, a low competition keyword. You will get better results if many people are using it.

DO NOT OVERDO IT

When using hashtags in your social media posts it is important to not overdo it. You do not want to use more than two hashtags per post, three at the absolute maximum. Statistics show that social media posts that have 1-2 hashtags get the most interaction, where posts of 3 or more have 20% less engagement.

Personally I have seen no drop in the amount of engagement with 3 hashtags. In fact, if a social media post is well written, includes an eye-catching picture, and uses hashtags that are acronyms like SEO and UX, can get just as much if not more engagement. Just look at the above image of a recent tweet where I used 4 hashtags. I received 5 Retweets and 16 Likes.

Then when you look deeper into the engagement analytics of that particular tweet, as seen in the below image, you will see that in addition to the 5 Retweets and 16 Likes I also received a total of 785 Impressions and 1 Hashtag Click. Though this goes against the rule of no more than 2 or 3 hashtags, sometimes you can get lucky. So just don’t overdo it with hashtags.

NEXT UP = Which social media networks use hashtags and which ones do not