Twitter

5 Tips for Using Hashtags During COVID-19

SN:D Agency · July 17, 2020 ·

Don’t get us wrong–we love a good #ThrowbackThursday or #MotivationMonday, but COVID-19 means that we’re all approaching and using hashtags a little differently these days.

As you probably know by now, a hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) and is used within social media posts to draw attention or engagement to certain trends and topics. Hashtags allow brands to engage certain audiences, gain new followers, join relevant conversations, and get their posts indexed by the social media network. By using hashtags, brands can expand their reach beyond those who already follow them to potentially millions of more people. But since COVID-19, we’ve seen dramatic shifts in what topics the public is focusing on.

As our cultural norms continue to change, much of the discourse and hashtags that were popular a few months ago are irrelevant now. These shifts in conversation and attention are happening daily and have altered consumer norms across industries, which means we have to shift our marketing strategies in order to keep up. Despite rapid changes, hashtags remain a great tool for engagement, leveraging conversation, and growing your digital presence to boost your brand–if you know how to use them.

In this post we’ll break down the different types of hashtags you should use, how to choose the right ones, and show how to utilize them depending on each social media platform–so read on for everything you need to know about using hashtags during COVID-19.

Using Hashtags During COVID-19: Use Top Trending Hashtags

When it comes to using hashtags during COVID-19, the first thing to ask yourself is, “which trends can I piggyback on?” A big reason people use social media is to follow trending topics and find out what people and brands are talking about. You can use an analytics tool like Hashtagify or Tweet Reach to find top trending hashtags related to your business, and see widely-used hashtags during COVID-19 in your industry that are both relevant and far-reaching.

We aren’t suggesting you use hashtags during COVID-19 just for the sake of using them. Wide reach does not necessarily equal high engagement. Make sure you are posting meaningful content and using the hashtag to add to the conversation. This means using the information on what’s trending to create an effective and relevant social media and digital marketing strategy, drafting high-quality social media messages, and then applying the trending hashtags that will bring attention to those messages.

For example, some great hashtags for healthcare brands to use are #HealthcareHeroes, #InMyScrubs, and #WeApplaud. You can, and should, use these if your brand is in the healthcare industry, and use them with posts that spotlight your nurses, or show the hard work your team is doing on the frontlines, or in some other way express gratitude for your employees. These are great ways to use trending yet industry-specific hashtags during COVID-19.

As you probably know, there are plenty of general and non-specific coronavirus hashtags, such as #COVID19, #StayHome, #SocialDistancing, etc. These are okay to use if you’re talking about your business’s new policies and guidelines related to the pandemic. Plus, they are great for getting your messages categorized on the platforms. However, because they are so general and highly saturated, there is a higher likelihood they will get drowned out quickly. Therefore, they are typically most effective when used combined with other, equally important types of hashtags during COVID-19.

Using Hashtags During COVID-19: Use Content Hashtags

Another type of hashtag you can use is a content hashtag:one that uses specific words directly related to a certain industry, product or service. These are typically keywords that your audience might be searching for when looking for information related to the industry.

Content hashtags are great for getting your messages noticed by a niche market. They are an effective tool for targeting specific audiences, as people often hashtags related to their interests. For example, when we make a social media post about marketing, we typically use popular yet industry-specific content hashtags such as #SEO, #MarketingTips, or #branding, as these are widely used buzz words. During COVID-19, however, as more and more businesses turn to online marketing, we find that hashtags such as #DigitalMarketing and #SocialMediaMarketing are even more effective than before. You can look for trends like these that have started during COVID-19 too and apply them to your own brand.

One great tool for finding effective content hashtags is Best-Hashtags.com. Here, you can type in a keyword and it will come up with a list of the most relevant content hashtags related to that topic. It is a constantly changing list, and it’s important to keep watching which content hashtags are most popular at any given time. During COVID-19, many hashtags have remained effective and widely used, but others have changed or been replaced by more relevant ones. Since it can change on a regular basis, make sure to stay up to date with what is trending in your industry. Usage of hashtags during COVID-19 may differ, but their dynamic nature is consistent.

Using Hashtags During COVID-19: Find Upcoming Cause Awareness Days

Another effective type of hashtag is one that is tied to a national observance or awareness day that is relevant to your business. This is a great opportunity not just for using effective hashtags during COVID-19, but for creating excellent content as well. Holidays like #NationalBestFriendsDay or #NationalDonutDay are great ways to get your audience to engage with posts, as well as to offer some lighthearted content during this difficult time. It can also encourage people take action and post their own content in response to your message. After all, how do you not post an Instagram story with your Chipotle meal on #NationalBurritoDay?

There are holidays for almost everything you can think of, and we guarantee you can find at least a few that relate to your brand. Does your business sell pet-related products? Make a post about #LoveYourPetDay in February, #K9VeteransDay in March, #NationalPetDay in April, and many more. Is your business a liquor store or bar? Celebrate #WorldCocktailDay in May, #WorldRumDay in July, and #InternationalBeerDay in August. The list goes on and on! You can go to nationaltoday.com to find a list for every month of the year.

The great thing about holiday hashtags, similar to trending and content hashtags, is that since these hashtags are often established and well known, they help to increase visibility. However, using pre-made hashtags isn’t your only option. If you’re looking for something more original, you might be considering a more unique kind of hashtag that distinguishes your brand from others. Consider making your own hashtags during COVID-19.

Using Hashtags During COVID-19: Make Your Own

Sometimes, even if you have the most creative content and relevant hashtags, your post might still get lost in all the others. Although they are great for many kinds of posts, there are some campaigns that are too unique to your brand to fit into any pre-made hashtag. That’s when you might consider making your own unique hashtags during COVID-19 for your brand or campaign.

Brand-specific hashtags can be used for a specific marketing campaign or for general branding. They are great for promoting upcoming events, product releases, or even social media contests. If you have a new and innovative idea, making a new brand hashtag might be just the push your brand needs to propel its campaign forward.

The benefit of using unique brand hashtags during COVID-19 is that they feel more personal for people, and help make your brand stand out among its competitors. A general rule of thumb for making your own brand hashtag is keep it simple. Make it short, easy to say, and easy for others to join on in.

One great example is Purina’s #PetsAtWork campaign. The company made an announcement on Instagram that people tend to feel less stressed when working near their pets, which is why working from home can be so beneficial. They started posting regular pictures of their employees working either from home or in the office with their dogs and cats. This hashtag caught on because many people who work from home could easily join in by posting pictures of their own pet (and because everyone loves seeing cute animal pictures).

Creating hashtag campaigns that are fun, clever, and easy to join in are great ways to get your brand noticed. If you’re worried it won’t catch on right away, try combining it with other trending or content hashtags during COVID-19 so that it can gain attention.

Using Hashtags During COVID-19: Tweak Usage for Each Platform

Finally, keep in mind that every social media platform is different in how they index and show posts with hashtags to its users. Here are some general tips for the main social media platforms:

Twitter

Tweets with just one or two hashtags typically get the best engagement. Using too many trending hashtags during COVID-19 can make the post appear to have no focus and thus reduce its engagement. For Twitter, we find great results from using one unique brand hashtag and one content or trending hashtag.

Instagram

There are differing opinions on how many hashtags are best for an Instagram post. Instagram recommends to use at least 9, but no more than 30. Avoid using more hashtags than you need because irrelevant or off-topic hashtags might make your post lose engagement and then get drowned out by more popular posts. We find that posts with anywhere from 9 to 12 hashtags perform great.

Facebook and LinkedIn

These two platforms work similarly when it comes to hashtags, which aren’t as useful as they are on Twitter and Instagram. However, when they are specific and highly relevant, they can help boost your post’s reach. Using too many hashtags during COVID-19 on these platforms will lower engagement. Posts with one or two tend to get the best engagement. For Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s most effective to use content hashtags that are industry-specific and tagged onto the end of your post in order to get noticed by your audience.

YouTube

YouTube is more picky about hashtags than other platforms. We suggest using between three and six hashtags in your description. If you use more than 15, YouTube will ignore all hashtags. So pick a couple of main points of your video and hashtag the keywords that you think your audience will be searching for. Unique brand hashtags during COVID-19 also work well on this platform, so pairing a few hashtags with your own created one is a highly effective strategy.

Using hashtags during COVID-19 on your various social media platforms is a great way to help improve your business’s reach. As the pandemic unfolds, remember to keep an eye on relevant topics, especially related to your industry, so that you can add something meaningful to the conversation. Hashtags, when used correctly, do a great job of getting your message noticed, but they can only go so far if your content isn’t engaging. For tips on creating great social media and digital marketing content during COVID-19, click here.

In the meantime, remember that SN Digital Agency is an experienced, results driven full service social media agency! We understand that many businesses need extra help during this time, and we would love to hear from you about partnering with your business to leverage your social media presence for success now and in the future! Contact us today!

Twitter for Business: Why Favoriting Tweets Is Worth Your Time

Nicole Harrison · February 16, 2015 ·

We know that when using Twitter for business, engagement is everything. Yet especially if you use a 3rd party software when managing your social accounts like Twitter, it might seem like retweeting and replying to tweets are the only important parts of Twitter engagement. Some 3rd party software, while very useful, does not always keep track of favorited tweets. So, why would you favorite a tweet? Don’t get me wrong–retweeting and @replies are so important to Twitter engagement, and you’re going to need a lot of these two to lead a successful online marketing strategy. However, the lonely “favorite” function is also worth your time. Here’s why:

Favorites are serving as retweets

If you haven’t noticed on this in Twitter yet because you’re busy using Hootsuite or SproutSocial, Twitter is experimenting with putting users’ favorited tweets on their follower’s Twitter feeds. If you favorite a tweet in support of a friend, your followers could potentially see that on their feed, just as they would if you had retweeted your friend’s tweet. Some people are annoyed by this, but you can leverage this new Twitter approach for your benefit. For example, maybe your Twitter account is a little too formal to retweet a particularly humorous post. If you still want to engage with the user who tweeted it, you can favorite their post. It may show up on your followers’ feeds, it may not. But whereas retweeting can be seen as endorsement, favoriting can be seen as approval. This can go wrong if you favorite a vulgar tweet, but as long as you favorite smartly, your followers may get to see a lighter-hearted side to your Twitter account than your formality usually allows, and the user who posted the tweet will appreciate your engagement, too!

Maybe you don’t have anything to say

[Tweet “Sometimes, tweets need no words.”] Sometimes, tweets need no words. Sometimes, you want to show support but don’t know how to reach out in a @reply. Favoriting a tweet is perfect for this situation! And with Twitter beginning to favor favoriting more than they have in the past (see above), your favorite will have more of an impact than it ever has before. This also works well if you tend to send a lot of @replies to a user and you want to mix up the engagement. Favoriting can be done in just one click or two (depending on the software you’re using), and it’s worth it to show you care without necessarily having to come up with a clever response.

Others favoriting your tweets can introduce you to new people

If you notice that one of your tweets is favorited by someone else, look and see if this person is within your key intended audience. If they are, this is a great opportunity to reach out to someone new. When a user reaches out first–and yes, that includes with a favorite–they are much more likely to engage with you in the future. You can also add these people to lists. If you’ve never used lists on Twitter before, I highly recommend you check them out. They are a way to organize the people you’re following. When one gets added to a list, they are told what list to which they’ve been added, so naming a list “potential clients” probably isn’t the best idea. Name the list something that will flatter people, and you’ve got a great strategy in the works!

Plenty of Twitter users are still old school

Even if you use a 3rd party program or software that keeps track of your tweeting and analytics, not everyone uses these tools! Often these programs pay little mind to favoriting, or at least do not prioritize them when measuring engagement. However, many users are using Twitter recreationally and don’t need to keep track like those who are using Twitter for business. Sometimes, you need to think about what ways your audience is using Twitter. Is your audience other businesses, where they might not notice a favorite? Or is your audience more the recreational user who just checks Twitter a couple times a day? If your answer is the latter, favoriting a tweet or two may be a great way to reach out to these users.

More visibility

No matter how you engage someone’s tweet, your profile will show up as either a user who retweeted or a user who has favorited the tweet. Sure, the icon is small, but anyone who looks to see who favorited the tweet will be able to have a direct link to your account. If you had passed the opportunity to favorite, someone could miss the opportunity to visit your profile and maybe even follow you if they like what they see! Any engagement, as long as it’s positive and appropriate, is good engagement. If you have any questions about the ‘favorite’ function on Twitter or you’re looking for guidance, we can help. Leave a comment below or contact us here! — Photo Credit

New Twitter Feature “While you were away…” and Why It’s Great

Nicole Harrison · February 3, 2015 ·

Don’t have time to scroll through a day’s worth of tweets?

Some Twitter users may have noticed something different on their iOS devices when checking their feed this last week. Twitter released a new update called “While you were away.” For those of you who haven’t seen or heard of this new Twitter feature, “While you were away” is meant “to fill in some of those gaps” that come from not being able to be on Twitter all day. Every Tweeter knows that Twitter’s feed goes fast, and it’s easy to miss important tweets if you’re busy for even an hour or two. But now Twitter’s attempt to save you some time scrolling is here.

Saving you time

What the feature does is take the “best” tweets from your network and prioritize them, showing you what you missed. If you’re on Twitter all the time, on the other hand, you will not be shown this feature as often, if at all. What I like about this feature is its responsiveness to the user’s habits. If you check your Twitter on your iPhone or iPad frequently, you won’t see this recap feature as often. If you rarely open the Twitter app, you’ll see this feature much more often, since there’s more you’ve missed. Twitter’s making a smart move here, adjusting their feature to the different habits of Twitter users. Responsiveness in social media is so important, especially when it comes to user’s needs.

Responding to your unique, individual needs

Responsiveness and flexibility in strategy makes the strategy work. In this example, would the “While you were away” feature be useful to Twitter-lovers, who spend hours a day on their feeds? Probably not, because they are not missing much. But for the busy entrepreneur who is in meetings and being innovative and all that, Twitter may not always be a priority. It’s handy to have a tool like “While you were away,” and it shows Twitter’s willingness to meet the needs of many of its users at once. [Tweet “It’s good to remember that responsiveness in social media is essential for success.”] What we can learn from this new feature is that in social media, we have the tools to meet many needs at once. Since social media is a fast-paced living organism, online marketers can be creative in finding ways to reach many audiences and avoid leaving people out. That’s one of my favorite things that we do at SocialNicole–being responsive to the needs of others in innovative ways. For wisdom on how Twitter’s “While you were away” feature can benefit your business, contact us or leave a comment below!

How to Get Followers on Twitter | Build a Real Audience to Grow your Business

Nicole Harrison · October 16, 2014 ·

It’s safe to say that we all want to know how to get followers on Twitter. More followers means more interaction, and more interaction means more opportunities. What is there not to love about more Twitter followers? Check out the tips below to see how to build relationships with your followers and how to get more of them!

1) Buttons. Display your Twitter button clearly on your blog or website. Make the button apparent and refer to it so that others can notice and allow them to follow you. Promote your Twitter candidly and inform others of the benefits of following you on a certain platform rather than all of them.

2) Retweets. It isn’t Twitter if you aren’t retweeting. Oftentimes, people only read what is on their newsfeed rather than searching. Stay on top of your A-game by posting often, but with quality content that will engage your readers.

3) Engagement. Engage in conversations, including others who may be an inspiration to you or someone you respect. By including their @name in the tweet, you allow a conversation to form. After all, social media is social!

4) Brands. Brands are a big deal, just like retweeting back to someone. Businesses small and large alike pay attention to tweets about their company. When you reach out and tweet something engaging, in return they might retweet you and from that, their followers will be exposed to your Twitter profile.

5) Guest posts. Guest posting on other platforms allows you to extend your reach as well as expand your content. Not only will you have a chance to deliver good content to a new audience, you will have the chance to connect and engage in dialogue, building relationships with more and more people.

6) Location. Build a following using your location. Location can help when you have it displayed on your profile and/or mention it in your tweet or in a #hashtag. People like to follow others who live nearby to help network in their communities.

This might sound easy enough, but the big test is incorporating it into your routine when tweeting. To break it down, keep it simple, keep it high quality and of course, no matter what, keep building that dialogue. Follow these tips on how to get followers on Twitter and let me know how it goes! For more information on how to gain a greater following on Twitter, contact me or leave a comment below and we can build your Twitter following together! — Photo Credit

3 Most Important Things to Know About the New Twitter Profiles

Nicole Harrison · August 18, 2014 ·

Whether you’re a Twitter veteran or a Twitter baby bird, there are certain things you need to know to keep up with Twitter’s new profiles. In all my experience working with small businesses and non-profits and their social media strategies, I’ve found I like the new changes Twitter made to its layout and customization options. To optimize your experience with Twitter, it is important to know how to take advantage of the options it now provides.

What to Know About Twitter’s New Profile

1. Dimensions

Even though the switch to the new profile happened at the beginning of the summer, many Twitter users have not updated their main and avatar photos yet. For some, it might be because they don’t know the dimensions. Don’t worry–we have you covered! For the larger, banner photo, the dimensions are 1500px by 500px. Anything smaller than this will result in a grainy, pixelated image. For the regular profile photo, Twitter settled with a square 400px by 400px. Make sure to adjust your profile to optimize the look and style of your account!

2. Filtered tweets

Just like in the olden days, when visiting a follower’s profile, you will be able to see the most recent tweets the person has sent. What’s different about the new profile, however, is that there’s another tab for viewing both tweets and replies to others’ tweets. The filters provide a more streamlined caption of what each user tweets about, saving users time. Having a separate tab for @mentions may give users the idea that @mentions are more private now, but they are still visible and public–they are just under a new filter tab.

3. Popular and pinned tweets

Have a great tweet you want to make sure doesn’t get lost in your profile? Have a few tweets that are particularly successful, and you want them to stand out in the crowd? Twitter’s new profile responds to this well by celebrating popular tweets on one’s profile and giving you the option to pin your own. When a tweet of yours gets more engagement (favorites, retweets, replies) than usual, Twitter will make the tweet larger on your profile. In the image above, tweets with less engagement are still on the page, but the more popular tweets are about twice as large, underscoring your contribution to the Twitterverse. If a tweet of yours didn’t get the response you wanted, it’s not necessarily too late. To pin a tweet to the top of your profile, click the “…” on the bottom of the tweet. It will give you three options. At the bottom of the three options is an option that reads “Pin to your profile page.” Your tweet will then stay at the top of your profile so visitors can’t miss your great post! – For more tips on how you can customize your own Twitter and use the updates to the best of your ability, contact us or leave a comment. We’d love to chat with you on Twitter, too!