The Ultimate Guide for How to Use Hashtags

Hashtags are found everywhere in social media these days, and have even permeated into our everyday language. The symbol for hashtags was previously only known as the pound sign (#) on telephones. What does using a hashtag mean? Where does that hashtag go once you put it out on the Internet? Do they really serve a purpose? When used well, they are definitely very useful for spreading and finding information online and reaching out to your audience. This blog will go over how to use hashtags for your business while making them fun to use at the same time!

What is a Hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or phrase with no spaces that has a pound sign in front of it. It is essentially a word, phrase, or sentence fragment that has been smashed together. The ‘hashtag’ has become so widely recognized that the Oxford Dictionary added the word to its dictionary in 2010 and Scrabble added it to their dictionary in 2014.

The hashtag was first introduced and most widely used on Twitter, but has since found its way onto Facebook, Instagram, and countless other sites. Now that so many websites use hashtags, the format links them together so that people using the same kinds of hashtags on one site can easily find more information on the other. All this sounds great, but #HowDoIHashtag? Knowing how to use hashtags well is important. The more specific you are with them, the more you reach out to your target audience.

For some formatting basics, you capitalization doesn’t matter too much when using hashtags for reach purposes. Here, we’ll capitalize each word to make them easier to read, which is a good thing to do for longer hashtags or ones that can be read multiple ways without clarification. Many people only capitalize the first letter, no letters, or whatever they feel like capitalizing in the moment. No capitalization is just fine for shorter hashtags. Also, remove any punctuation from the sentence, including commas and apostrophes.

Be Specific

So you think you are ready to use hashtags to start promoting and marketing your business. Great! First off, you need to know your target audience. Imagine that your service is dog grooming. You could use the hashtag #Dog, but that is way too general. By using something more specific like #DogGrooming, you would get a more targeted audience to what you are actually wanting to sell. If you are trying to promote something other than a specific product, such as a photo, make sure the hashtag is specific to that as well.

Relevant Hashtags

When you are using hashtags for your business, try and come up with ones that have yet to be claimed by another business. This is where it can be tricky. You do not want to use your actual business name as the hashtag, but you want something that is relevant to it. However, tons of hashtags have already been claimed by businesses around the world.

As an example of good branded hashtags, many cities use official hashtags for tourists to use when they are posting pictures from a vacation. This is a great way to promote travel to their city using people who have been there and are posting their own pictures. A few examples of this are:

• South Dakota uses #HiFromSD
• Florida uses #LoveFL
• Disney World uses #DisneyWorld

By doing this and asking audiences to use these branded hashtags when posting to social media, everything from baseball teams to travel destinations to small businesses can reach a target market while creating a good research tool for its viewer base. It also gives them follower-generated content to use on their website and social sites. The initial branding may take some time and research, but will be a powerful tool in the long run.

Short and To The Point

It can be fun to get witty and creative with hashtags, but make sure you do not make them too long. For example: #DontMakeAHashtagAnEntireSentenceLong. Even with capitalization, is that pleasant to read? Sure, a longer hashtag may target a very specific audience and provide lots of information, but it will not trend or search well at all. Pretty much no one would think up the same long sentence in a search. Also, no one wants to type in that many characters, and this hashtag would take up most of the character limit on Twitter.

Being too clever in your hashtags may hurt you as well. You want people to naturally search for your hashtag, not have to be super clever to even find it. Being simple and short with the hashtag will get you more searches and more eyes towards your business.

More Content than Hashtags

When you are posting to social media, no matter which platform, make sure you have more content in your post than you do hashtags. A post crammed full of hashtags overwhelms and annoys many readers. Just because Instagram reportedly lets you use up to 30 hashtags in a single post, does not mean you should actually do that! It is hashtag overload, and often leaves you looking desperate. Sure it will gain you more viewers, but with this many hashtags, the visitors you gain will most likely be spammers rather than real people or people who are not in your target audience. If you like to use many different hashtags, make a list and spread out their use in several different posts over time.

If your post just repeats information and does not add to the general conversation of the topic, it is sometimes best to leave hashtags off entirely. When you are just reposting a breaking news story or a DIY idea you found online, there is no need to hashtag, since you are essentially just repeating something that isn’t your own content that was already out there.

Cater to the Social Media Sites You Use

Each social media site has its own preferred way to use hashtags to get the most out of them while using the platform. Do the research for each site to find the best way. Instagram tends to be more focused on the content description, while Twitter is more focused on the topic of the conversation. Take the time on each social media platform to look into what is the most relevant hashtag for your topic and go from there. If you use LinkedIn, keep in mind that that site does not like hashtags, so using them there can actually hurt your posts.

Hashtags on Twitter

For Twitter, the hashtag is used widely to tie everyone together in an ongoing conversation. For example, if you use #2016PresidentialDebate and click on the hashtag in Twitter, it will pull up all posts for that hashtag. This connects people who are not actually friends and allows them to all be a part of the bigger conversation. There is a hashtag stream that Twitter uses that allows you to connect with people in several ways within the same hashtag. It goes something like this:

• Top: This is the stream of tweets that have seen the most engagement, usually those that have the most recent followers.
• Latest: This is the live stream of those tweeting out a hashtag at that very moment.
• People: This is a list of the top Twitter accounts that you can follow relating to the current popular hashtags.
• Photos: This a collage of photos that are included in the tweets that use the trending hashtags.

Knowing this system for Twitter can help you find your best target audience and help you in figuring out the best hashtags to use. You can see what kinds of hashtags become the most popular and formulate your own hashtags in a similar way.

Hashtags on Facebook

Hashtags on Facebook are much like Twitter, where they tie together people who do not know each other. Unlike Twitter, Facebook profiles can be private, so when the hashtag is clicked on, the person’s information and posts may not be visible. Most hashtags used on Facebook are by brands, publishers, and influencers rather than individuals using them to connect to strangers.

Hashtags on Instagram

Hashtags have the same effect on Instagram as they do on Twitter and Facebook, but the search for a hashtag is much easier. Just go to the search bar in Instagram and type in the hashtag you are looking for to find results including that word or phrase.

Hashtags in the Offline World

Can you use hashtags outside of the Internet for your marketing? Sure! They can be great on fliers to help with a promotion or fundraiser drive you might have. They are also great for weddings, since guests don’t all know each other but will all be posting photos. Having a unique hashtag will create an album of sorts for all customers, guests, or clients. The research may take awhile, but your business will reap the benefits of a good hashtag in the long run. #ExploreHashtags

Hopefully this blog helps you develop your strategy for how to use hashtags for your business or event. If you want more information about social media, check out Virtual Market Advantage’s other blogs. This one goes over how to use social media to promote your blog posts!

Simple Ways to Improve Content Protection

Simple Ways to Improve Content Protection

From blog posts, to pictures, to an actual web page, most people have some form of online content out there. But how do you keep this content from being copied and reused without your permission? With the ease of getting your message out there comes the ease of someone else reusing your message somewhere else on the web. Here we will go over some simple steps you can take for content protection to help keep your content on your website or blog only.

Blog Posts Already Stolen

You are surfing around the Internet and come across a great blog about your interests, and you realize its great because (ugh!) it’s your exact blog! What are the steps you can take to not only get the stolen version taken down, but to also prevent it from happening on your other blog posts?

Find the Webmaster: See if you can locate the web page owner on the blog and send them an email asking them to please remove the copied post. If you are unable to locate the website owner, you can go to WhoIs.com and type in the web address. Doing this should give you the webmaster's email and/or information about the hosting company. Once you have this contact info, you can start sending DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) emails.

DMCA to Web Host: Send the same DMCA email to the webmaster and the web hosting company. Hosting companies also have forms to fill out for DMCA takedown requests. Most hosting companies take copywriting seriously and have a team dedicated to correcting the issue. Here are a few direct links to hosting company DMCA forms:

• GoDaddy DMCA link
• HostGator DMCA link
• Bluehost DMCA link

DMCA to Google: You will also want to fill out a claim form in its entirety with Google. Make sure you check every box so that your claim will not be rejected unnecessarily.

DMCA to Facebook: If you want to check and make sure that your content was not copied or posted to Facebook, you can do a search of the exact title in the search bar. If you found your copied content on Facebook, you will want to file A DMCA claim with them as well. When you fill out the claim form, make sure you copy the exact link to your content that was copied.

Protecting Written Content

Maybe you have already been through the above process of getting your copied content removed, or you are just starting your blogging journey and want to provide content protection from the start. There are a couple steps that can help you make sure your blog post stays yours:

Disable Right Clicking: You can disable the ability for visitors to your site to right click and copy your content. Doing this will prevent most people from copying and pasting your content or pictures for their own use. There are a few ways to do this. First, you can go into javascript and code it in yourself. If this is not something you want to do, you can install a plugin like WP Copy and Protect that can disable the right click for you.

Display Strong Warnings: To stop some content theft, you can place a warning in large bold letters that clearly states that copying your content is prohibited. For example:

WARNING! COPYING PROHIBITED

WE WILL PROSECUTE ALL INTERENT THEFT OF OUR MATERIAL

COPYING PROHIBITED!

There are also official badges that you can place on your website from protection companies such as Stop Web Pirates and CopyScape. This method works in a similar way to having a home security sticker in the window of your house.

Change RSS to Summary Instead of Full Post: Most spamming sites use an RSS feed to get to your full post and copy and paste it from there. By changing this to a summary instead of the full post, you will force them to actually visit your site. When they do this and you have the right click disabled, they will be unable to copy your post. Or they will not visit your site in the first place and will go on to the next one. To change this setting in WordPress, login to the dashboard and go to Settings. From there, click on Discussion and change the RSS feed to Excerpt. There should be a similar option on other development sites.

Protecting Your Images

Images are one of the easiest forms of content to steal online, so it’s important to protect them if you don’t want them to be spread without your permission. There are a few ways to go about this:

Watermark your Images. A watermark is a faint bit of writing or logo that is placed over the image. If you do this, there is no way for a person to remove it even after they take your image, so people will see where it came from. There are several software programs that help you create a watermark for your images.

Disable Right Click: Again, just like for your written content, you want to make sure that the right click option is disabled for your images. This is just like locking the door of your home to deter all but the most persistent burglars from getting in.

Copyright: You can also get a copyright for your images or business, if you are a photography business. If you do this, make sure you attach your copyright notice to the right of all images you post online. Doing this will give you good grounds to prosecute someone for stealing your images.

The Internet is a tricky place to navigate, as you try to provide content protection for your own images and writing. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming, but there is always a step to take to make your content protection stronger or fight back against thieves. When it is something written or created by you, then taking steps to protect it is well worth it. There are web content companies out there that can help you keep your website safe. Just like you keep your home and its belongings safe, you need to do the same for your content online.

If you want more information about content, website development, SEO, blogging, and more, check out Virtual Market Advantage’s other blogs here!

How To Promote Your Blog Post Using Social Media

How To Promote Your Blog Post Using Social Media

You have a great idea, so you sit down and write a piece about it. You put it out there by publishing it to your blog. Is just posting it on your website enough? The short answer is no. By sharing your blog post the correct way through social media, you will get a steady flow of visitors to your site. Here we will go over a few tips and tricks to get the most eyes on your blog using different social media platforms.

Posting the Blog Link to Facebook

There are a couple of quick steps here you can take that will ensure that you reach more of your followers. First, as you go to post to Facebook, don't just copy and paste the link. Give your readers a tease before they click on the link. You are allowed over 63,000 characters on a Facebook post, but the first 480 characters are what is visible to viewers without clicking to see more. By providing a quote or paragraph from your blog to get the readers interested, you will entice a bigger percentage of viewers to click that link. Another way to get followers interested via Facebook is to include a picture in your post that relates to the content of the blog.

Posting to Twitter

Twitter is a whole different ballgame from Facebook. Twitter takes time and patience to reach a solid audience. It was the first social media platform to use hashtags and @ handles to spread information. While they have stretched out the character limit to 140, it is sill most effective to use the least amount of characters as possible. Using up to 4 hashtags also makes it more searchable for keywords. Also, use @ handles aimed towards specific people or companies to spread a message or give credit where it is due.

The average time a tweet stays relevant is 18 minutes. This is where the time and patience comes in. To keep your blog post relevant, it is best to share your blog post to twitter more than once and on different days of the week and at different times of the day. The best time to share on twitter is between 8-10am, 11am-1pm, and after work at 4pm. Keep in mind that your audience may mostly reside in a different time zone than you when you decide when to post. Posting within these time frames will give your tweet, and hopefully your blog, more eyes. You can post your link weekly and then slow up to monthly depending on what type of promotion you want for the blog.

Posting to LinkedIn

This is a platform that lets you post to a personal profile, to a group, or on a company page. If you're posting to a company page, it works a lot like Facebook, where only the first 150 characters will be seen. So making those characters engaging and enticing to the reader will make people more likely to click on your link. Make sure that you establish a conversation with your readers within your post. An easy way to accomplish this is by asking them questions. When sharing your blog post to LinkedIn (as with Facebook), it's a good idea to attach an image to your link.

The best time frames to post to LinkedIn are between 8-10am and 4-6pm. Make sure you are posting once here for the first promotion of a particular blog. Then post once a week, eventually reducing down to once every 2-3 months. Make sure these reposts are on your profile and not your page.

Pinning On Pinterest

This location of social media promotion is all about image. With thousands of images up to see on Pinterest, you want yours to catch people's attention and hold them long enough to read the description and click on the image. Pinterest gives you up to 500 characters in the description. However, to keep the reader convinced, it is best to keep your pin at 150-300 characters long. Always use a link to your blog in the description here, because clicking on the image takes the reader to your blog location. Share your featured image of the blog post to Pinterest to help the reader connect from Pinterest to the blog, and add a call to action in the description to engage readers to like, repin, buy now, or read more.

To gain a specific audience, you should use the feature of creating boards based on specific topics and pin to those accordingly.

Sharing on Instagram

Instagram is similar to Pinterest in being image-driven. With Instagram, the images are shared in a single stream and lose impact quickly. Most interaction takes place within the first 3 hours of posting. With only the first 155 characters of the maximum 2200 characters allowed in the description of a photo showing, it is key to say what is most important within the first 3 lines. Hashtags are a great way to engage on Instagram, and there are times where the description is all hashtags. This decision is up to you, depending on what you are promoting.

Use your blog's featured image to promote here first. Then post again over the weeks to keep an audience interested. You may want to post other pictures featured in your blog as well. The best time to post on Instagram is in the evening.

Post Based on Social Media Outlet

What all of this should tell you is that you should not go and post the exact same thing to all of these social media platforms. Each platform has a tailored audience and a different method of dispersing information. Look at your audience and your followers, and ask yourself what would make them stop scrolling and look at what you are posting. Tailor your posts to the platform and the readers who are going there. You also may not need to cross post to all of these sites with every post you make, depending on the blog. Each blog is unique, and so is the social media post that will give you the most viewers.

If you want more information about blogging, SEO, social media, website development, and more, check out Virtual Market Advantage's other blogs here. This one goes into the history of Vine, and why it dissolved even though short videos are a huge content powerhouse right now.