What is a Hashtag?
The hashtag is also known as the number or pound sign (#) and is attached to the beginning of a word or short phrase to connect a common topic through social media. Hashtags serve an important purpose that is critical to growing your online presence and brand recognition.
Why Hashtags are Important
Hashtags form a connection between images or ideas that are similar. You will likely gain more likes, favorites or followers on social media by utilizing hashtags. It allows people to share and engage with your brand or business.
How to Use a Hashtag
In this example of a hashtag, we are using the social media platform Instagram.
The Michigan Farmers Market Association, as well as other farmers markets and shoppers, often add the hashtag, #FarmersMarketsMI, to their posts or photos on social media. When a hashtag is added to the front of a word, it turns the word into a clickable link, which will connect to similar images when clicked. In figure 1:A below, you can see that the hashtags #FarmersMarketsMI, #Birmingham, #Michigan, #SundayFunday and #BuyLocal are all blue and “clickable”. These are examples of properly used hashtags.
Figure 1:A
By adding a hashtag on the front of a word, you are creating a “community of images” on social media where others can use that same hashtag to find other photos of people participating with that brand or experience. We suggest using one or two consistent hashtags on every photo you post. If you are a farmers market, farmer/vendor, or shopper at a farmers market in Michigan, we suggest using the hashtag #FarmersMarketsMI on all of your market photos.
In Figure 1:B below, you can see that if you click on the blue hashtag word #FarmersMarketsMI, it takes you to a search results page that showcases photos other people have taken and shared. This is a great way to see how other people are experiencing your event or brand.
Figure 1:B
When using hashtags, there are a few rules to remember:
- Words and Phrases Only: Keep your hashtags short and to the point. This will make it easier for those searching.
- Do Not Use Punctuation or Spaces: Hashtags do not recognize punctuation or spaces. For example, #You’reCool will be cut off at the apostrophe, recreating your hashtag to just #You.
- Limit Amount of Hashtags in a Post: It is best to keep it at just two or three separate hashtags per post. Four or more hashtags can be overwhelming to your reader.
- Capitalization Doesn’t Matter: Hashtags do not recognize capitalization, so it’ doesn’t matter if your word is all lowercase or has any capitalized letters. It still works and will correctly search for that content.
Make sure to hashtag your farmers market photos with #FarmersMarketsMI
Another resource we like that helps explain the hashtag: