#Hashtags … love them or hate them, either way you need to be using them. Use them to increase your reach and find your target audience. You may think this is self-explanatory, the world of social media and hashtags go hand in hand but do you use hashtags on Facebook? Since the beginning hashtags have been associated with Instagram and Twitter but now Facebook is joining in on the fun. Is it too late or will the hashtag be given a new lease of life?
By sending a simple notification, Facebook has prompted us all to start using hashtags on posts to improve your reach. Is today the day that hashtags finally become the norm on Facebook? Even if they don’t take off completely, we still think it’s worth using them even if it only increases your reach slightly, every little helps right?!
So you’re ready to accept the migration of hashtags onto Facebook but aren’t quite sure how to take the first step on the venture ahead, don’t worry, we’re here to help with our top tips:
- Go back to your best performing Facebook posts and add hashtags and a comment to use the algorithm to your advantage and get more engagement
- Use hashtags just like Instagram, the amount is up to you, find out what works for you
- Do your #research on Instagram first – find the best performing hashtags there as Facebook doesn’t tell you the post counts quite yet (evidently promoting the hashtag was a big enough step for one day!)
- Find what hashtags are in use by simply using the search bar
- Place hashtags at the bottom of your posts, just like on Instagram
- If you want to find out more about a certain hashtag then you can use the ‘Browse’ button that appears at the bottom of some posts
- Experiment! Find what hashtags work for you and see when you get the most engagement
The growth of hashtags on Facebook is an interesting development and do we have Covid-19 to thank for this reinvention of hashtags? With the introduction of the #SupportSmallBusiness on Facebook at the start of the pandemic to help small businesses through the lockdown. This hashtag has now been used over 3 million times on Facebook. This is a prime example of how successful hashtags can be so start using them on your posts now!
It all seems positive so far but we do question, does the use of hashtags on Facebook not just blur the lines between the social media platforms, are they all just morphing into each other? Is it making us lose our creativity as we can now just cross-post to every platform? Will this lead to an increase in Facebook use? … Only time will tell! But in the mean time you may as well use and abuse this new growing feature and see how it can benefit you and your engagement.
Will you be using hashtags on Facebook now? We recommend that you do! If you need any advice on how to go about doing this then please get in touch via sophie@sasconsultancy.co.uk and let us help you navigate the social media world as the hashtag slowly takes over.
