The evolution of Hashtags

When a new person or company joins a social network they are often amazed or many times confused after noticing some clickable terms prefixed with the hashtags (#) on posts.

Today, even many brands are using hashtags during offline branding & marketing events.

The questions arise; why these hashtags are used? What are their importance & how they are useful?

Let us understand the emerging world of “Hashtags”

What is a hashtag (#)? According to micro blogging website, hashtag (#) sign is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Whereas, for social network “Facebook”, Hashtags (#) turn topics and phrases into clickable links in your posts on your personal timeline or Page. Generally, term / phrase which contains hashtag (#) has been referred as “hashtag”. Popular hashtags on social networks turn to be trending topics.

Which networks use hashtags (#)? Currently most of the popular networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube have implemented the hashtags ecosystem while professional networking platform “LinkedIn” is yet to come up on this front.

Why using hashtags is important? – When users click on the hashtag, they are directed to the list / category of posts using the same hashtag. Hence exposing the particular post (content) to a bigger audience group.So, it can be said that hashtags connect people on the basis of the topic of interest or content.

There is another advantage of using hashtags. Basis on the use of hashtags, social network’s content & person recommendation algorithm works hence a great way to get enhanced profile / page reach organically.

Use of Hashtags in offline space – Recently many search engines including Google has started displaying organic results basis hashtags (#).

Creating a hashtag is like creating a domain name which as a result groups all the communication flowing across the web for a brand / campaign / event.

Hashtags are equally dangerous – While using hashtags user should take care of some guidelines. Using too many hashtags may have deteriorating effect on the content / page performance. In fact, when you use more hashtags, your engagement may drops by an average of 17 % or more.