Tag Archives: How do I find hashtags?

Hashtags and Facebook

Facebook is getting harder to manage due to the ever-changing algorithms. This makes it really hard for you to make your small businesses visible to your followers if you’re not paying for ads.

One of the ways to help with your organic reach is to use hashtags as they can help you improve your content’s engagement.  

Why do hashtags help small businesses?

Here are four reasons why hashtags are worth the time and effort on Facebook:

  • Posts with hashtags can be found in a Facebook search. We’ve all used the Facebook search to find what we’re looking for – for example I’ve looked for old school friends using the search bar. In the same way, you can search a hashtag. So, using hashtags on your post to make them more visible is going to help your reach.

    Using relevant hashtags will help you with your visibility – for example, a local hashtag such as #scentedcandlesswindon, can help your local visibility for scented candles. Or if you use a hashtag such as #smallbusinessweek2024, someone looking for that could come across your page.

    The people searching hashtags may not all have a genuine interest in your type of business, but if they do, they’re likely to look at your page and content.
  • If you are using other social media channels, such as X or Instagram, and running a particular campaign, or talking about a particular product or service, using hashtags on that channel, add them into your post on Facebook to keep your channels consistent. You can use the hashtag IN the post, not just at the end, so long as it is relevant. For example, if I’m doing a marketing post about Small Business Week, I could incorporate it in my post – ‘Good morning. The week is #smallbusinessweek2024, so today I’m going to talk about …….’ You get the idea.
  • Hashtags can also help to create a community on Facebook. If you share or create a unique hashtag, you can find people who have the same interests or who are in the same group as you.

    Using your own unique branded hashtag on Facebook can also increase the visibility of your business, such as the one I use #cindymobeymarketing (which is also the URL of my website). This also makes it easier for people to find relevant related content.
  • If you host an event or regularly host events, creating a unique hashtag for that event can give people an easy way to stay updated on that event. You can also do posts about the event using your own branded hashtag for your business.   

How do you know which hashtags are good for your posts?  

To decide which hashtags are good to use for your business and your posts, you need to know that it’s relevant and popular before you use it. You can do this by:

  • Checking which hashtags your followers and customers use. This means they will relate to you and if they’re searching a hashtag they regularly use, your content could pop up.
  • Use Facebook’s recommendations – when you are scheduling posts, as soon as you start to type a hashtag, you’ll get a drop down menu that will give you variants of what you’ve typed and the volume for each of those hashtags, so you’ll be able to see which ones are popular – try and use a mix of volumes.  
  • Look at your competitor’s posts on their Facebook business pages and see what hashtags they use. They might have great engagement partly because of the hashtags they use, so you can add some of them to your list. This is not stealing their ideas, it’s just doing competitor analysis, which is all part of social media marketing.

Facebook hashtag best practice

Here are a few extra tips for Facebook hashtag best practice.

  • Use hashtags in sentences. For example, if you were sharing information about an event you’re attending, such as a night market, you’ll be doing a post about that. Instead of writing ‘This weekend you can find us at Makebelievemarket on Saturday #makebelievemarket’ – use the hashtag in the sentence, ‘This weekend you can find us at #makebelievemarket on Saturday. It looks tidier and incorporates the hashtag into your sentence.
  • Don’t use spaces in hashtags. For example, you would use #makebelievemarket – NOT #Make Believe Market – as only the first word after the hashtag will count and it will be a completely different one – and not relevant to what you’re talking about!
  • Don’t use too many hashtags. It is recommended to only use up to five hashtags on Facebook posts. If you have too many, it can confuse the algorithm as hashtags act as keywords to help people discover your posts. Using fewer hashtags is also easier for you analyse which ones work best for you, as not so many to look at.

    That’s not more than five in the whole post, including any you use in the sentences too.
  • Make sure the hashtags you use are relevant to your content and your business. This seems obvious but a lot of people use hashtags for days of the week, for example #throwbackthursday. If your post is about a happy memory or a throwback of a previous product that you remember fondly, it’s relevant. If you’re writing about a new product or something irrelevant, it won’t help you with engagement if your post is found on that hashtag and that person is searching for #throwbackthursday.     
  • Check your privacy settings. If the settings on your Facebook business page is set to followers only, then you’re wasting your time using hashtags, as you need your setting to allow non-followers to view your content. All my settings on my business Facebook page are set to ‘public’ so anyone can see anything I post. Ensure that your posts are ‘public’ too.

    Please note: If you’re using your personal profile page to test your hashtags, you’ll need to make your posts ‘public’ manually.  

Measuring your hashtag use  

You can measure how your hashtags are doing by looking at your ‘Insights’ on Facebook.

  • Go to your insights and click on ‘posts.’
  • You’ll see a breakdown of your engagement rate, type of post and total reach for each post.
  • Now, it won’t give you hashtag performance, so you’ll need to work through your posts and data to find out whether your Facebook posts with hashtags work better than those without (so some testing to do), and over time you’ll be able to see which posts with a particular set of hashtags work better than other sets – again this will be through trial and error, and a bit of insight research

At first you may not see that much difference in results because you won’t have used a particular hashtag enough for it to build a connection between the hashtag and your page/business. This is another reason why fewer hashtags are easier to manage – you won’t know the results if you use shed loads!  

I hope this has helped in understanding how hashtags can work for you and your business on Facebook.  It might seem complicated, but once you get going, it will become second nature.

As always, if you need any help, feel free to message me on Facebook @cindymobeymarketing or email me cindymobey@outlook.com

Other blog posts I’ve written about hashtags include:

Are hashtags still viable in 2024

Hashtags FAQ 

Are hashtags still viable in 2024?

Did you know that hashtags have been around for about 20 years on social media?

Originally they were used to help filter and organise conversations on Twitter, but over the past several years, Instagram and then Facebook have adopted them to help businesses to be seen and found on search engines.

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to talk about Instagram and Facebook.

What are hashtags?

Hashtags are used on social media platforms. A hashtag is a sign (#) followed by a word or phrase. The word or phrase that businesses use will depend on what kind of business they are, or what their social media posts are about. That word or phrase is seen as a category for search engines.

For example, I often use the hashtag, #smallbizmarketingtips when I post on Instagram. I’m a marketing coach and content creator helping small businesses. So, this hashtag is relevant to my business. I often post tips for small businesses to help them with their marketing. Using this hashtag does what it says on the tin – it marks that particular post into the #smallbizmarketingtips category.

Not only does it categorise my content, so that when someone searches for #smallbizmarketingtips, my posts are often included under that hashtag, it also helps individual businesses find an array of tips from lots of different marketing businesses.

In a nutshell, a hashtag helps social media users connect with other businesses over specific topics and popular content – and acts as an invitation to discuss, view and engage with all sorts of content online.

Should you use hashtags?

Yes, absolutely. Using hashtags increases your chances of being seen on social media and in search engines. For example, hashtags help Instagram know exactly what your content is about and helps IG suggest that content to people who are interested in that topic. It also helps show that content to users who are searching for specific topic too.

How do I find hashtags?

There are a few ways to do this…

  • You can simply put a search into Google. Just type in ‘hashtags for XXXX’,  (whatever business you are in). A list of hashtags will appear…usually it shows you the top 10 or more for that category.
  • You can use a hashtag generator tool. Some of these tools are free, but I haven’t found any that you don’t have to register for – and often there is a catch or hidden fee somewhere!  
  • Simply log into your Instagram account, go to the search and type in # followed by whatever you are looking for. You will then be shown the top posts that have posted under that category. It also tells you how many posts fall under that category.

Do not use hashtags that have millions and millions of posts under it – your post will just get lost. I always advise using hashtags that have under a million…and mix it up. So, use a couple that have between 700k and a million posts, a few that have between 200k – 700k, and the rest under 200k, making sure you use some that are under 50k. This gives you the best chance for your posts to be shared in that category. I actually also use hashtags that only have between 500 – 1k posts, as I know my posts will feature in that category and it gets my business out there.

How many hashtags should I use?

It really depends on what you want to achieve. On Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags per post, but new info suggests 5-10 max.

There is no hard and fast rule, however if you keep your hashtag numbers lower, you can connect with your specific audience better.

Facebook is slightly different. A study conducted by thesmallbusinessblog.net looked at over 200,000 brand posts on Facebook.

The study found that content with one or two hashtags had 593 interactions on average, compared to 416 engagements for posts with 3-5 hashtags and 188 interactions for posts with 10+ hashtags. From this, it’s clear that Facebook posts with fewer hashtags tend to perform better.

Are hashtags still popular in 2024?

That’s a BIG, FAT YES!

Including a hashtag strategy in your marketing will help you build your brand. There’s never been a better time to put relevant hashtags in your social media posts. They play an important role in connecting potential customers to your business.

I can help you build your hashtag strategy, so contact me to get started!