Do you know how many hashtags you should use on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Twitter?
If not, or you would like a reminder here’s a guide with some additional advice.
The advice on whether to use hashtags on Facebook is constantly changing. At present Facebook, itself is encouraging the use of hashtags.
Ideally, you should use 1-3 hashtags at most and ensure that they are relevant to the content of the post.
With Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags but ideally, you shouldn’t use more than 12-15 per post.
You should also use a mixture of popular and less popular hashtags to help your content stay at the top of people’s feeds for longer as it is more likely to get noticed.
When it comes to Linkedin you should use no more than 3 hashtags per post and you should use both broad and specific/niche hashtags for increased exposure to more people.
Remember Linkedin is a professional platform so make sure any hashtags that use reflect this
Linkedin has a useful best practice hashtag guide which can be found here and is worth a read.
When it comes to Pinterest, the current advice is to use hashtags.
You can use up to 20 hashtags but the recommendation is that you stick to 2-5 hashtags, which are added to the description.
Any hashtags used in the description count towards the 500 character limit like with other platforms.
Snapchat
With Snapchat, hashtag usage is limited to simply being used in the search bar for search for news stories.
Other than that hashtags don’t work on this platform so there is no point using them.
TikTok
When it comes to TikTok there is no recommended number of hashtags that should be used but there are a couple of things that you need to bear in mind.
Firstly, you only have a 100 character caption limit and this includes the hashtags.
Secondly, the longer your caption the more of your video that is covered by both the caption and the hashtags.
With Twitter, you should use 2-3 relevant hashtags per tweet but with this platform, your hashtags count towards your 280 character tweet limit so you need to use them wisely.
Again like with the other platforms you should use a mixture of popular and less popular hashtags are seen by more people and stay in people’s feeds for longer.
Twitter is also a good platform for using hashtags for awareness days which are specific for your business. Details of when these days take place and the hashtags to use can be found on the Days of the Year and the Awareness Days websites.
YouTube
With YouTube, hashtags can be added to both the title and description fields.
However if hashtags are only used in the description then the first 3 used will appear above the video title as well as in the description.
For this platform you should ideally use 3-4 hashtags and are probably better using 3 as then they will all appear above the video title.
General hashtag advice
It is important to ensure that any hashtags that you use are relevant to the content of your post and you are not just using them for the sake of it.
Have a list of key hashtags that you use regularly on your posts and save these either in a notes app, a social media scheduling tool, a file on your computer so that you have them to refer to and use.
Create your own brand-specific hashtag and encourage other people to use it in their posts. This can be particularly important if you are running an event or conference for example as it helps to create a discussion and boost engagement on social media.
Review how the hashtags you have used impacted on engagement with your posts and if you find the use of certain hashtags results in more engagement create more relevant posts using these hashtags.
Overall it is important to keep an eye out for any changes when it comes to the usage of hashtags as the platforms are constantly making changes.
Have you got any advice when it comes to the use of hashtags? If so please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below so that we can all benefit from them.