24: How the Heck Do You Use a Hashtag?

We run this hashtag, trueplayers for life. Hashtag, is it worth it or let me work it? Hashtag put my thing down, flip it, then reverse it. Hashtag is your women in the gayette? Hashtag is your women in the vignette. Hey guys. Yeah, Quest. What's up? Hashtag shut the up. This week on the podcast, it's all about the hashtag hashtags. What? Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake so humorously pointed out hashtags are a thing. We can joke about them, but it turns out they're quite useful as well as beneficial if you use them on social media. So this week on the podcast, it's all about the hashtags. You've heard of them, you've seen them. You may have even heard the phrase goals. You may have even asked someone, well, how the heck do you use a hashtag? I get that question a lot in my line of work, so that's why I knew I wanted to devote an episode to to this important, albeit confusing part of social media. By the end of the episode, you will understand everything you need to know about how to use hashtags and why the heck we use them in the first place. I want you to feel comfortable using a hashtag on social media without worrying about feeling like a hashtag dinosaur. For the Confident Communications podcast, I am your host, Molly McPherson, and we are after our own hashtag goals. Now, to my knowledge, there has never been a playbook on hashtags. It felt like all of a sudden everyone just started using them and no one really knew why. And this was around 2016. And nowadays I notice that I get asked the question a lot, what the heck is a hashtag? Now, no one raises their hand at a talk or a workshop and asks me this. They always ask me on the side. They don't want other people to know that. They don't know what it is. But I see you. I know that it's difficult to understand how to use something that just kind of popped up out of nowhere, but what the heck is a hashtag and how do we even use them for business or on our personal accounts or when we see them on a television program? I'm going to tell you everything that you need to know about a hashtag. And this is easy. It's going to stick. So you don't even need to write it down. It's all easy to remember. You'll learn about how and why you want to use them and that it's not just about business and social media marketing related. There's actually a fun way to use a hashtag as well. Now, before we dive in, if you like podcast tutorials, I want to let you in on a new program that my team and I are in the process of creating. Soon I'm going to be launching the Learning Lab. It's an online resource for learning how to communicate in the modern age. It's great for people who are responsible for businesses or departments or running an entire organization. The key to succeeding a business is providing a service that your customer needs. So that's why I did this. I get so many questions from people at the top of their game. They know how to run their business, but they don't understand communication for the modern age. They don't understand how to use LinkedIn or Facebook or even if they should be using it. And yes, hashtags. So the Learning Lab is going to offer monthly trainings on all the relevant social media platforms and get you up to speed on how to effectively communicate in the 21st century to help you be heard, stay seen, and maintain your relevancy. So if you want to know when the Learning Lab is going to go live, you can subscribe now@mollymcpherson.com backslash learning lab. I should have said hashtag Learning Lab. Look for that in the future. Now let's move on to our hashtags and learning all about them. First, what is it now? A hashtag. It's just an easy way to categorize or group content into different buckets. Think of it as an index, or you can even think of it like a price tag. It's something that is identifying what where that piece of content should go. It just helps give a tweet or a post a little bit more context. People will use hashtags to find specific information about a brand or a topic. If I dive into Twitter and I want to know about a brand that I know is in the news, I'm going to type in hashtag and then write out the brand and then I'll see all the people that have written about that brand. So it's a way to categorize information easily. It also can help a business gain more engagement on a social media post if you use it correctly. Look at a hashtag as an invitation to a party. It's like walking in the door saying I'm here for the party and everyone is there for the same reason and they're all talking about the same thing things. So now what does a hashtag look like? So for those of you in the Gen X or older camp, it's the pound sign followed by a word or a very, very short phrase after it, with no spaces in between. For millennials or younger, it's simply known as a hash mark or a hashtag. And for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, if you're on your computer right now, you can try hitting shift and 3 on your keyboard and then you will see what a hashtag looks like. Now, where did they come from? Now, hashtags started on the true hashtag platform, which is Twitter, where they're still widely used today. Chris Messina was a former Google developer and he tweeted, how do you feel about using the hashtag sign pound for groups, as in hashtag bar camp? Now, initially, this didn't go over very well with other people in the tech community. A lot of people just dismissed it, including people on Twitter. But he wanted to find a way to make it easier to develop a community for people who are talking about the same topics. And the hashtag symbol was easy for him to reach on a cell phone, and other people were using it in chat groups anyway. So eventually the hashtag caught on and became hashtag a few days later. So now we're all using the hashtag. Now, how do you use it? Here are some of the do's and the don'ts. You can. You can use a hashtag in two different ways when you're posting something online with a hashtag or when you're searching for something online with a hashtag. So let me just start again and talk about the searching piece because I think it's an easier concept to understand if you're new to hashtags. I personally use them sparingly. I'm very deliberate when I use them, and I think I use them more to search for other information, specifically on Twitter. I have to admit I've never searched a hashtag on Instagram, but there's a lot of hashtags. Even more hashtags are used on Instagram. So hashtags widely used on Twitter and Instagram and sometimes on Facebook, though the novelty has worn off on Facebook a bit. And the reason why is because most Facebook accounts that people use are private. It's a small universe of people. So if you put a hashtag on a post, it's only going to be used by people that are friends with you on Facebook that are searching that hashtag. So it's another way of saying you really don't know how to use hashtags if you're using it on Facebook. Now, some people will inject a hashtag on a Facebook post for humor, but I would advise, and I always do advise not to do that because you're sending a message that you don't understand the journey of a hashtag. So a journey of the hashtag is it's meant to go public out in the Internet for other people to grab onto it and find it. You can look at it this way. A hashtag is like a library and a huge library if you are using one. If you're searching for one book in a library, if you have a huge library, you're going to get a lot of choices. But if you use a hashtag on Facebook, it's like going to your friend's house and searching for a book. You don't really have a lot of choices there. So given the choice, don't use hashtags on Facebook. They're mostly meant for Twitter and, and Instagram, but they can also be used on YouTube as well. You don't want to use the hashtag in the title on YouTube, you want to use it in the description because people are using the hashtag as a search feature for YouTube, which is owned by Google, and it's a very, very powerful SEO engine. Now, it's another way to find out what people are saying about a particular topic. You can find a list of trends in the left sidebar on Twitter. So if you were to go to your Twitter account, you have one, it will ask you which region you live in. So in my case, everything that is trending in Boston will usually pop up on the side of my feed. I will always look at that when I'm going on Twitter because that's how I know what is breaking news wise. It's all of the posts that are on Twitter where people are having a conversation about one specific event. If it's a breaking news story or some breaking trend, Twitter will let me know on that left hand side that this is a conversation that's happening right now on Twitter and you can jump in as a safety measure. Before I even comment on anything on Twitter, I usually look to the left and see what's trending to make sure that I have an accurate representation of what the story is. So don't overlook that sidebar. Now, if you don't see what you want on that sidebar, you can go to the search bar at the top of the Twitter screen or Instagram, any social media network that you use and start typing in the hashtag that you're interested in. It will create a more curated feed for you to see than just the posts that have those hashtags in them. Was that clear? Let me explain it again. You can type a word with the hashtag or you can just type the word itself. And you will get more information and more topics in the feed. Because Twitter, the social media network, is going to look at hashtags and also going to look at words. Now if you're not sure which hashtag you should be using again, look to the left, see what other people are using. Or you can just do a regular search and I'm sure that you'd be able to come up with some, some words that might, you know, tie into some event there. But just look for the hashtag that's being used universally. Now, where this comes into play from a business perspective is you want to make sure that if your business or organization is jumping in a conversation about some event and let's just focus on Twitter, cause I wanna focus on that breaking news aspect to it. There's a lot of breaking news on Twitter. You wanna make sure that you are using the hashtags that everyone else is using now. For example, when I was working in emergency management, when I worked at fema, we were in the business of storms and earthquakes and wildfires. There isn't one person out there that is the head hashtag or that is deciding what the hashtag will be that is used. Usually you have to do the search first to find out what's being used. For my baseline search, the first place I go, the press, I find out with the top newspapers, the top cable news networks, the network news, what hashtags are they're using because usually they have already researched it from the official organization. If it's a weather event, I'll look at what the National Weather Service is calling it. If it is a earthquake in a certain state, I'll go to the state and see what they're calling it. So you want to make sure that you're a part of the conversation. As an aside, the reason why the Weather Channel and all these, the weather organizations out there started attaching names to winter storms, just like hurricanes, is because of the social media aspect to the breaking news. You can't just say a general winter storm, but if you call a winter storm, I remember that was one of the first name winter storms out there, Winter Storm Juno. You can turn it into a hashtag and people can easily find it. Now those are examples of how other organizations and news outlet use hashtags. Now can you create your own hashtag to use? Absolutely. People do it all the time, especially if you're in a business. Now, when you do create your own hashtag, keep in mind that other people may have already used that hashtag. So you want to do a little cursory search there to find out how that hashtag has been used in the past. Because if you want to build momentum around a hashtag and there's some not so nice looking hashtags out there, some unsavory hashtags that you can be a part of, you want to make sure that you separate it and come up with your own hashtag. Once you've researched it, the coast is clear. There aren't that many people using it. You can go ahead and use it, but you can't use it sparingly. That's not the idea. You want to try and gain as much traction as you can with that hashtag. Hashtag. So it usually should be a group project or your communicator should come up with the idea for a hashtag because it's almost a little bit of branding connected with a little bit of messaging and pr. Because you have to use something that's succinct, that's something that sticks together. And is it a word that, if you mash it together, could one person see another word spelling within that same spelling? Also, could the name itself be contrived or have some other meaning to it? So it's not something that you just want to throw up on a wall and see if it sticks. Creating a hashtag is really a part of a branding, PR and marketing effort. Now, let's say you're not doing it for business and you're just doing it on your own. You can create any hashtag that you want, and some people might use it as a subtle way to get another bit of information in there. It's a little like muttering something under your breath like, ahem, this is what I actually mean. You can use it for sarcasm, or you could use it for humor. In other words, you could tweet a statement and then you could have a counter hashtag to show that you're using humor or sarcasm. Now, why would you want to use hashtags? You want to use hashtags in your content if you want to increase engagement. For the most part, that's the only reason why people will use hashtags is so they can be a part of a greater conversation. With the exception of the times that they're just using it as part of the overall message. It's a part of their writing. It's that, that subtle tweak that they're adding on. Now, this is what I recommend. When you're starting to use hashtags, play around with them for a bit, search, use them in other places sparingly before you actually dive in, especially if you're new to it. So a great way to start is look at the trending hashtags. You can also go to a website like allhashtags.com there are so many of them. And you can see all the hashtags that are trending there. And any that you can jump into. It doesn't have to just be about a business or a news story. It could be about a hobby. It could be about an opinion or a television show. Think of a hashtag as a way to track a trend. A business, a person, a ball game, an election point of reference. Back in 2008 was the first time that social media was just starting to be used in the election process. It was more about Facebook was a way to engage voters. Twitter was a way to engage the press and lawmakers and other stakeholders. So politicians were just diving in to using social media because social media had moved off of college campuses and now were being used by the mainstream. But it really wasn't until this last election in 2016 that we saw the very deliberate use of the hashtag. So it started to pick up steam, I would say, in the last few years. But we saw it at its apex in 2016 in terms of use during an election. And there were a lot of hashtags floating around the Internet in election 2016. Maybe you might remember some of these. The attacks. LockHerUp, BasketOfDeplorables, NeverTrump hashtag. I'm with her. Feel the burn. Do they sound familiar? Now you can see the art of how to use a hashtag. It's a way of making a longer statement without having to make the entire statement. Because Twitter, again, there's not a lot of real estate on Twitter. You only have 240 characters to get your message out. But if you can say, feel the burn or basketofdeplorables, you know exactly what the Bernie Sanders campaign wants you to feel and exactly what Hillary Clinton had said about the basket of deplorables without using too much real estate. And as you figured out by now, hashtags just aren't exclusive to business or elections. They're also used in movements. They help create a groundswell to bring people together around one issue. For example, BlackLivesMatter. Love is love. Pray for Orlando. Prayforso many cities that suffer through a tragedy. But you can see with these examples here how the hashtag can bring unity to a situation or a movement, but it can also bring division as well. But it's a way to categorize, bring people together, to have everyone form one opinion, one thought, one movement. Another place where you can see the use of hashtags is an entertainment. I'd said at the beginning of the episode that there's actually a fun way to use hashtags. And one of my favorite ways to use a hashtag is when I'm participating in an event or watching an event on television. For example, if you were to go to a ball game, they will tell you to use a specific hashtag so you can be shown on the jumbotron And I did this years ago. My kids love this. When we would go to Fenway Park, I'd say I was one of the first Red Sox hashtag users. I can honestly say that because every time we would go to a game, I could get our photo onto the screen and so my kids could see it. You know, it's great. But if you do it now, almost every arena, every ballpark, every stadium will have that same type of campaign. Another place you see it is through entertainment of big television programs or big events such as the super bowl or the World Series or most recently March Madness. If you typed in March Madness. You will see all the posts about the the basketball games for the male and female championship, national championship, go who's When Virginia won. It's a really fun and exciting way to follow the story and just watch all the memes and the videos and the posts that are out there about an event. Now, let's say you're not a sports fan. Maybe you love to watch television. The Emmys, the Oscars, the Grammys, all of those award shows have hashtags as well. The reason why the networks put the hashtag with a word in the lower right hand corner of your television screen is because they want you to engage online while you are watching live. They want people to take the chatter from their homes and put it on their phones and on social media networks. It's another great way to jump in to try to use hashtags because everyone is talking about the same thing. And if you're watching an award show, it's great. Really. Any of the shows or programs or even sporting events, people can be very funny and snarky and you can get great nuggets of information. So I do encourage you to try it. So sit down, you're watching television, take out your phone and start engaging with that hashtag. So now are you ready to jump in and start using hashtags? So, three quick tips when you use a hashtag. One, Be very specific when you use it. If you're using a hashtag to join that conversation, make sure that hashtag is specific and relevant to the topic at hand. Also, keep it simple. So a hashtag, like a lot of links, can look like spam. If you use it too much can kind of scare people. It seems like marketing spam. Three hashtags at the most. If you're using them on Twitter, I think one or two is best. Now, Instagram, that's the social media network that supports heavier use of hashtags. You have all the real estate in the world to put as many hashtags as you want. However, most social media marketing experts would tell you to use somewhere between 10 and 12 hashtags if you want to gain some momentum and engagement on that post. But if you have a closed network on Instagram, you don't need to use that many hashtags. You can keep it simple. And remember Facebook, if you have an open business account, you may want to use hashtags to help with the search, but you really don't have to because Facebook now really isn't the social media network for hashtags. YouTube, on the other hand, they're starting to use more hashtags, so use it in the description, not in the title. And the last social media network that I didn't mention before is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is offering hashtag suggestions when you have a post, so go ahead and use them because they have created within their algorithm the use of hashtags. So go ahead and use them again. One to two is fine on LinkedIn. Lastly, give context every single time that you use a hashtag. A tweet that only takes uses a hashtag can be very, very confusing. And it also can be boring. If you send out a tweet that says bored, all you're saying is that you're bored and there's no context there. You want that hashtag to be a part of an article that you retweeted or a statement that you said. Or finally, if you want to use it with humor or sarcasm. That's all for today's episode of the Confident Communications Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found these tips helpful. And if you are someone who likes to learn in the comfort of your own space, you will want to sign up for my Learning Lab. It's a new program that offers monthly trainings on all the relevant social media platforms and will get you up to speed on how to effectively communicate in the 21st century. Like how to use a hashtag? We'll help you be seen, heard and maintain relevancy. So I hope the Learning Lab is something that could help you. You can sign up today to find out when Learning Lab is going to go live@mollymcpherson.com learninglab for even more tips, you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast. I want to help you become a modern age communicator in your industry and help you build a crisis proof reputation for you and your business. Hashtag Bye for now. Sam.