Want to double your engagement on social media?
There is a simple way to do this with hashtags; those # signs you see all over Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook which allow you to tag your posts with information indicating your area of interest and let people find your material when they are searching for that topic.
When done right, a hashtag gives social network users valuable information based on the trending topics. With this said, a hashtag connects like minded individuals within a click of a button.
Why this works so well is hashtags are visible to anyone searching for them, even people outside your network. You may be tempted to add dozens of hashtags for maximum exposure but you have to be careful. This is becuase people are turned off by too many hashtags as seen in this infographic created by Quick Sprout below.
For example on Twitter, using two hastags in optimal with 21 percent higher engagement rates on replies, favorites, click-throughs and retweets. Try if out and you will be sure to see the difference as 40 percent of tweets with hashtags get a retweet compares to 25 percent un-tagged tweets are retweeted.
