Making Hashtags Work for You

Twitter and Instagram have served as great outlets for expression for the masses that use them today. On average, 75 million people check Instagram and 500 million tweets are sent each day. With this kind of viewing traffic, these are the perfect places to use to market you. But how can you find yourself amongst the masses?

The hashtag. Popularized on Twitter to help you search for tweets and then added to the Instagram world, the hashtag has changed the game of publicity. Each hashtag can be searched and tracked in the Instagram and Twitter. This means that if you place a hashtag in your caption or on your tweet, it can be searched and found by people around the world. This form of search engine can give you an edge in the promotion of your music.

These few pointers can help you learn how to utilize the hashtag on Instagram and also help your use of them on Twitter.

Broad to Specific
The choice of hashtag is imperative in your success, but how do you know which ones to choose? The way to choose is going from broad to specific. Say you are an indie band and you have posted a picture of your band. In the caption you will want to put the following hashtags: #music #indie #bandname and one that is specific to your brand. That can be a word you use, a saying, or maybe the company you are signed with if you that is your case. Taking something broad like music, and then going more specific under that topic of music will help your followers and future followers find you.

Don’t try too hard
Seeing the posts with so many hashtags that one has to scroll down for what seems like days does not get you more followers, it just makes you look desperate. No one wants to see #cute on a picture of your heavy metal band. It looks as if you don’t care to market, but only want to raise your follower count. Only put the hashtags you feel relate to your post. One rule of thumb is to only put the ones you don’t really have to think about. Once you have to try come up with hashtags, you know you have exhausted the relevant ones.

Research Your Hashtag
Before you post, look at the pictures that fall into the hashtag you have put. Your photo or video is going into a category with other posts that have the same hashtag. You need to make sure that you aren’t putting yourself and your music into a section it shouldn’t be in. Say you write #fun. If you look through the photos with that hashtag you will find posts you do not want your post to be related to. Fun can mean a lot of things, and your kind of fun might not resemble that at all. Inform yourself before you post.

The hashtag can be a great way to publicize one’s self. Many musicians have gained fans just by being frequent Instagram and Twitter users. Let’s look at an example using the rapper Kid Ink with the promotion of his album Full Speed. If you search #FullSpeed on Twitter, the following comes up:

By using the hashtag #FullSpeed, one can see all of the feedback given from fans all over the world. When moving to Instagram, using the same hashtag, one sees more fan publicity and appreciation:

Kid Ink has 1.1 million followers on Instagram and 791,000 on Twitter. His use of the tactics listed above has gained him fans and followers.

By taking the time to get to know your desired fan base, you can use free tools, like Instagram or Twitter, for something profitable. There are many ways to publicize yourself through social media, but if you acknowledge the three ways presented above for your next and future Instagram and Twitter posts, you will give yourself the ability to promote yourself easily without leaving the comforts of your screen.

By Josselyn Thornton, contributing writer for SplashFlood