Using Hashtags as a Small Business Owner

By: Michael | Published: August 20, 2010 | Filed under: Small Business Advice, Small Business Tools

Have you ever heard of using a “hashtag” on Twitter? Maybe you’ve seen people on Twitter write a word, phrase or series of letters preceded by a “#” sign. This is what is known as a hashtag. Let’s take a look at what hashtags are, and how we can leverage them as small business owners to drive more traffic to our blogs.

Hashtags are very similar to the “tag” feature of most blogging platforms. It uses key words to indicate what the post is about. The primary function of hashtags (and even tags in general) is to add a sortable element to the post. A hashtag can be a broad topic (such as #Marketing, #PPC, #SEO, #SEM, #SocialMeida) or very specific to an event (such as #ASE10, #ASW10, #SESNY.) Either way, you should be leveraging conversation on it to get your business in front of a relevant audience.

To “talk” on a hashtag, all you have to do is include the tag, preceded by the # sign in your tweet. What this accomplishes is listing your tweet among all of the others that have the same tag. For example, if you were discussing a hot new hip hop track, you could tag your post #HipHop. Any interested parties that search for, or routinely follow #HipHop will see your tweet. Tweeting on these hashtags about relevant things that the community is looking for can get your brand serious exposure to your target audience. Keep in mind that you are not trying to spam links or sell on the hashtag. Just put out great information that your audience will want to read. Not only will this you prominent within the community, it should help get you some very relevant followers and even clicks to your site.

There are numerous shows, concerts and events throughout the year that have a hashtag associated with them. It should go without saying that if you are at the show, this is an invaluable way to see what is going on, and who is where. However, don’t overlook this opportunity to see what is happening at events you could not attend. Many times people will be live blogging a play by play of what is happening. Even if you are not at the event, you can make use of the hashtag associated with it to network with conference participants. Don’t be shy! If someone on the hashtag is talking about something that interests you, send them an @ reply and be sure to tag that with the # too!
It goes without saying that if you’re not on Twitter, you should be. But if you are on Twitter and not using hashtags to your advantage, you are truly missing out on an incredible opportunity.