Ahhh the hashtag. Personally one of my most favorite parts of Social Media (especially in Instagram), but I know that they can be very confusing and sometimes annoying to many people. So today I would like to breakdown exactly what a hashtag is for you and give you a couple tips that I have picked up along the way.
First of all, what exactly is a hashtag?
The simplest way to explain it is the # symbol added before a keyword or group of words.
What do hashtags do?
When you hashtag a word or phrase with the # symbol it creates a link. That link can be used to find images, tweets, updates, pins (depending on the social media platform), etc with the same content and hashtag.
Hashtags can be used for many different things. One of the most popular in the last year or so is for the various photo a day challenges from around the net. Here at TLP we recently moved from a month long photo format to weekly lists.
When I open IG and search using the hashtag #TLPdailylife I can see all images that has been taken and tagged so far…p.s. If you are an IG user you should totally be playing along :)
You can also create and use your own hashtag for personal projects. I use the hashtag #missmoostyle in my personal IG feed for all pictures of my daughter. This makes it easy to find all her photos without having to scroll through my 1500+ IG feed.
Hashtags are also a fun way to connect with people. A quick search of #TLPMobile on Instagram shows us all the photos that have shared using the Mobile Ready Fonts from the store:
Last year when I finished my December Daily cover I snapped this quick photo.
In the caption I hashtagged the various brands that I used, including #marthastewartcrafts. And to my utter surprise and excitement the official IG account for the Martha Brand liked my album! (Yes I am a big nerd like that lol)
Now some quick tips!
1. No spaces! If you are using a hashtag with multiple words, using the space bar will break your tag. So for example when I use the #missmoostyle tag, if I were to space it out like #miss moo style, the only linked part would be #miss.
2. Most punctuation and symbols will not work in a hashtag. Pretty much the only symbol that can be used in a hashtag is an underscore (_). Dashes (-) DO NOT work. So #the_lilypad and #the-lilypad will create two totally different things.
3. Numbers DO work, so if you are captioning a photo with “We are #1” that # and 1 together just created a hashtag!
So if you have been on the fence about hashtags, I hope you will give them a try. They are a fun and easy way to connect with people who share your likes and interests!
<3 Brynn Marie
kyky says
great article!
sue.falstaff says
#awesome