It’s quite impossible to remember the time when we didn’t use the tagging system on social media through hashtags, but for your surprise hashtag has been with us for only eleven years.
It was for the first time used by former Google and Uber designer Chris Messina on 23 August 2007 on Twitter, and since then it has flooded the social media with hashtags. The first hashtag that was used was #barcamp.
how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?
— Chris Messina™ (@chrismessina) August 23, 2007
What is the importance of Hashtag?
Hashtag has now become an important part of Twitter and Instagram, and other platforms as well. Hashtag is an efficient method to search for information and content related to a certain topic or issue. It optimizes the outreach of content on social media. With the right hashtag, people can increase their reach and make themselves discoverable to a great extent. On Twitter and Instagram, knowing your hashtags is like unlocking social media gold. With the evolvement of Twitter, the hashtag has completely transformed the way people use the internet.
Sometimes, hashtags can be life-changing, for instance, #IceBucketChallenge, #KikiChallenge. They have become so viral and people accept these challenges to make it buzz even more.
The hashtag was primarily created for indexing keywords or topics, allowing people to easily follow threads they are interested in. What are the qualities of a perfect hashtag?
– Well, a hashtag should be short and distinct, so it can be easily added to Tweets or captions. Catchy, clear, concise and relatable hashtags are the perfect ones. The shorter it is, the easier it is to read.
– Adding capital letters to hashtag makes them more attractive, for instance, #Pixr8News or #pixr8news.
– Another important part is the hashtag limiting, TrackMaven study found the maximum engagement on posts with around 11 hashtags on Instagram. In the case of tweets, using no more than 2 hashtags per Tweet is recommended.
– It must be noted that common hashtags like #love or #enjoy may work leniently, on the other hand, unique and distinctive hashtags,for example, #DoUsAFlavour campaign can do wonders.
– Certain categories like travel hashtags, for example, #GoaTravel or #GlobeTrotter can increase the reach to a high extent.
– The hashtags should be easy and not complicated yet unique. Being overly clever, or tossing in witty rhetoric is equally non-attractive.
– Using hashtags in a correct way is important. A hashtag is not required in the middle of a sentence on every word like some people do. It is unattractive as well as useless. For example, #partying #with #my #friends. Therefore, do not over tag or spam. Limit the number of hashtags.
The various social media platforms that support hashtags are:
Google+
Tumblr
Flickr
FriendFeed
The hashtag can be considered as one of the most remarkable gifts of the microblogging platform Twitter which is at present a regular feature on social media. It started with Twitter and spread all over the internet in no time.
For the branding and marketing of their products, people use an extensive use of hashtags. For example, a blogger Akanksha Redhu stated, “I use hashtags like #RedhuBeauty, #RedhuLuxury, #RedhuTravels, etc because it doesn’t just help me build engagement, but helps segregate my work to show to clients,” adding that she uses #AkankshaRedhu in every post which is a part of her personal brand-building.
For decades, the hashtag symbol was most commonly known as the pound sign but now, its meaning has totally changed and also it has changed the face of social media. It has given a great opportunity for business owners and digital marketers to boost up the strength and effectiveness of their social media marketing campaigns.