Hashtags are a great way to expand the reach of your company or brand. By adding hashtags to a post, you're making your content discoverable and giving other social media users the chance to engage with you on a common interest or theme.

However, many people and businesses are forgetting one important thing when writing their hashtags. It's time to learn about the wonders of camel case...

First of all, what is camel case?

In camel case, the first letter of each word is capitalized when writing compound words or phrases; the first word isn't uppercase.

You may also see this practice stylized as camelCase. Here are a few common examples:

eBay eLearning iPhone macOS vCard

When you also capitalize the first word, it's known as upper camel case or pascal case, as seen here:

BlackBerry HarperCollins LaserJet LinkedIn YouTube So why the cute name?

This way of writing is called camel case because the capital letters are taller than the lowercase ones.

The rise in the middle of the compound resembles a hump on the back of a camel.

What has this got to do with hashtags?

On social media, longer hashtags using multiple words have become increasingly popular.

In most instances, people write out the entire hashtagged phrase in lowercase like this:

#videotovoicerocks

However, this way of writing hashtags is problematic for many social media users.

What sorts of problems do lowercase hashtags create?

Lowercase multiple-word hashtags are an issue for screen readers.

A screen reader is a form of assistive technology that reads out text and image content as speech or renders it as braille.