There was a time when the lowly number (#) symbol was vaguely used and its presence was rather teeny-weeny unlike some of the other more dominating ones. People only used it may be in reference to numbers. But things have changed, like a Cinderella story overnight, for this once upon a time lesser-known symbol. It has indeed shot to fame with it being used or may be overused in today’s scenario. In the social world, it has ceased to be just a number sign anymore. It’s now a hashtag, something of utmost importance, something that has created waves like a style statement and is predominant everywhere!
Hashtags are basically words or phrases with a prefix “#’. You can find content related to specific topics by just using the hash symbol. Hashtags are related to core keywords and therefore play an important role in search engine optimization (SEO) of content as well as websites. Hashtags with the right keywords ensure long-term drive of relevant traffic to your website.
When a conversation is optimized with hashtags, it tends to become more visible on search engines and social platforms. A simple search for the keywords used in the hashtags will display all the results using that particular hashtag in a conversation. People can also join in the conversation using the hashtag. It’s true its potential is immense and can be levered uniquely across each social platform. However, we should be aware of which websites support hashtags.
Many people still think that hashtags can only be used in Twitter. Well, that’s not true! What began with Twitter surprisingly did not stop there. Hashtags have crawled out of Twitter and are rapidly finding their way on other social media platforms too. Here is a list of the websites that support hashtags.
1. TwitterTwitter is the biggest micro-blogging site where this trend first started with the first hashtag posted in 2007.
By 2009, Twitter began to hyperlink all hashtags in tweets to Twitter search results for the hashtagged word. In 2010, Twitter introduced Trending Topics on the front page that displays the most popular hashtags.
2. Google+Introduced in 2011, Google+ allowed hashtags in its posts. With around 300 million monthly active users on Google+, hashtags have gained popularity since then. Related hashtags help posts get discovered and build conversations around the content of that post.
Instagram, the online mobile photo sharing, video sharing and social networking site also allows hashtags.
It was in 2011 that Instagram added hashtags to help users find friends as well as photographs or topics that were of interest to them.
4. TumblrAnother micro-blogging and social networking platform, Tumblr, is a site where users can use hashtags in their blogs and posts and also find topics and discussions of interest.
5. FacebookFacebook too followed the obvious trend by allowing users to apply hashtags in their posts.
The idea was to enable the users to discover what was being said about a specific topic and participate in public conversations.
Pinterest is a social media platform where people can post images, videos and content on a pinboard setup. Hashtags are allowed on Pinterest and like other social media sites serves as a shortcut for searching relevant topics and content.
Does It Really HelpHashtags that are well researched and based on core SEO keywords will help you to increase the quality as well as the quantity of visitors to your website. This will in turn enhance your content marketing effort. Not bad at all, right? So, are you following the trend and using hashtags?
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