

Hashtag, also known as the pound sign, was first used in August 2007 and has become extremely popular these days. By now probably all of us are very familiar with the term hashtag (#).We can see hashtags on almost every social network these days. They are placed before a particular word in order to categorize posts. This makes them much easier to find.
Twitter was the first social network to introduce hashtag to the world. Their entire site search algorithm is based on hashtags.
However, Twitter is not the only social network to use hashtags. Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn & Facebook also use hashtags.
According to studies, tweets with hashtags get twice as much engagement as those without them, as well as 55% more Retweets. Not only this, it has also been found that today nearly 75 percent of people on social media use hashtags.
The power of social media marketing depends on how well you are creating engagement as well as conversations between your targeted audiences & your business through your content as it helps increase brand awareness & can eventually boost your sales as well as profitability.
Hashtags can help facilitate this greater engagement and thus help you increase your brand awareness.
Hashtags can help your business gain insights on what exactly your targeted customers are interested in & what they are talking about. This can be done by simply clicking on a hashtag that you believe is related to your business & your brand can instantly get connected to the targeted audience. They can connect your business with topics that people are interested in and enable you to interact with them through these topics which in turn can help you improve your online visibility as well as build relationships that can eventually help your turn your audiences into customers.
Hashtags can provide your audiences with greater insights about your business or brand, let them know about your business history and ultimately help you increase your brand loyalty.
If you have still not started using hashtags as part of your online marketing strategy, you should give it a try. It can help you increase your awareness as well as get your posts seen by more & more audiences. However, if used incorrectly, it can have a negative impact as well as cost you followers & customers.