The use of hashtags is one of the most determining factors for any brand’s engagement and reach on social media, no matter which social media platform your brand relies on. Most of us are unsure of how to use hashtags correctly, and most importantly, why we should even use them. Hashtags are like search engine keywords, except for certain social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. They represent your SEO strategies for social media, and they contribute to the growth of your reach. To get more exposure or traffic on social media, you need to learn how to get your hashtags to rank. Here are the 7 best tips on hashtag rank tracking and how to correctly use this strategy to grow your business. 

• Place Your Hashtags After the Caption

Placing your hashtag in the middle of or right after your caption can look spammy to your followers, especially if you use hashtags frequently in your posts. If you’re using more than 4 hashtags in the same post, you want to make sure you place your hashtags below your caption. 

• Find Trending Hashtags 

Many apps and tools are designed to provide you with trending hashtags relevant to your content. Sometimes, you just have to insert the photo or post along with your caption so that the app can generate hashtag suggestions.

• Track Competitors and Social Media Influencers

The best method of finding the right keyword or hashtags for your audience is researching your competitors and influencers and analyzing the hashtags they use. Try to use keyword.com API to find out the best hashtags used by your social media community. This step will help you keep up with your competitors and how they stay engaged with their followers. 

• Separate Your Caption and the Hashtags

Placing your hashtags in the middle of your caption is surely the safest way to avoid looking spammy. However, there’s a better way to do this. All you have to do is write the caption, press return or enter, place a dot so that you can go to the next line, and repeat five times before placing your hashtags. 

• Spot Related Hashtags

Adding a few related hashtags would be helpful if you already know the hashtags and topics that work well for your business or brand. Related hashtags are more specific to your niche than most popular hashtags. Use them to connect with your followers and expand your reach. You can find related hashtags above the Recent and Top tabs in the Explore section on Instagram.

• Find Successful Hashtags from Your Previous Posts

The key to finding successful hashtags is tracking your previous posts and analyzing those that received the most attention. Once you spot a trend, optimize it and use it to amplify your social media reach.

• Place Hashtags in the First Comment

Placing your hashtags in the first comment of your posts makes your caption look much cleaner. It also draws more attention to it, which is beneficial if you’re trying to communicate a CTA to your audience.

Hashtags play a huge role in driving traffic to your content and social media engagement strategies. They work the same way as keywords for SEO. You include relevant keywords that are trending across most channels on the platform you’re using. That way, you engage with potential customers outside your circle and go beyond your followers’ list.

Related posts:

It’s 2014, is ‘social business’ dead or alive? How Social Communities Anchor B2B Digital Programs Content marketing agency lessons: beyond messaging + copy to utility How to build a B2B twitter account to 1000 real followers in 30 days