078: Social Media Hashtags in a NutShell

What is a hashtag you see on almost evey social media network? From Instagram, Facebook, Twitter to Google plus, hashtags are everywhere! How do you make sense of them? How do you know how many to use? When should you use them?

Hashtag, hash brown.... they sound somewhat the same. I've even had a few clients confuse the two just for fun.

Explaining the difference between a hashtag and hash brown is one of my favorite questions to answer. Often times, the people who have the guts to ask are the ones who get it the quickest. Why? Because as I always say, social media is about people. It’s about conversation. It’s about having a conversation to connect with real people. Social media simply makes it easier to do such.

Social media is not rocket science. We believe that most of marketing, business and life really can be simplified and put in a nutshell in terms that doesn't require a PHD in acronyms to understand.

So, what exactly is a hashtag? Take a listen to this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a succinct definition of a hashtag and how hashtags can help you grow your business using social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Google plus as well as increase brand awareness, help you nurture community and better measure your results and conversations using social media.

I even give you a fun recap of the differences of a hash brown and hashtag for those of you who like breakfast analogies to solve your social media problems ;)

Episode Highlights

Definition of a hashtag
Why you should use hashtags
Difference between hashtags and hash browns
Benefits of using hashtags
How to leverage hashtags to nurture community
How to leverage hashtags to do market research
How to identify top industry hashtags
How to select your own hashtags
Short summary of Twitter chats (will be covered in depth in episode 79)