HASHTAGS

#Hashtag #Whatisahashtag? 

What on earth is a hashtag and why is it all over social media? The definition for hashtag is: A word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#), used within a message to identify a keyword or topic of interest and facilitate a search for it. So whenever a user adds a hashtag to their post, it is immediately indexed by the social network and searchable by other users. 

Okay so that is what explains what a hashtag is but why is it all over social media and what is the point? Here is an example of someone on Instagram using hashtags on the post that she is making. 

By using the hashtags, if her followers click it, it will direct them to images that are associated with that word kind of like a data base. So how would this work for social media marketing? Well it is another case of creating virality and brand awareness through social media posts and people who have quite a lot of influence are successful at this. For example fashion bloggers who may post about an outfit will use the hashtag to tag a brand just like in the image above she has tagged "#hermes". Someone who is following her may have never heard of it so by clicking on the hashtag they are then redirected to all images that have been posted with the same #hermes hashtag. 

So if you are starting out by using hash tags you can get people to look at your page as well as other people using hashtags about you will continue a chain similar to give aways where people will visit your page more often and your brand will be more 'recognised' which is the end goal.