Start Hashtagging Smarter
The way entrepreneurs hashtag these days literally defies logic. Seriously. It makes no damn sense. For instance, I came across a wedding photographer and along with a bunch of other tags, they had hashtagged "she said yes." Wut.
Why do they do this? Because all their competitors and their mother are doing it. So I'm not calling out or making fun of this specific photographer...they're far from alone. But what kind of bride is searching for vendors to hire when she gets engaged and searches "she said yes." Not only is it not specific to anyone like caterers or florists or photographers, but it's not even location-specific. What good does searching "she said yes" do? Absolutely none. Hashtagging instead something like "Minnesota wedding photographers" that is location-specific and search friendly makes a whole lot more sense. What I mean by "search friendly" is that it's much more likely that a bride would go on Instagram and search her location along with "wedding photographers" as opposed to "she said yes."
So how do you apply this to your business? Put yourself in the shoes of your ICA (ideal customer avatar). Get in their head. What are they searching? Don't use the hashtags that have a lot of hits just because they're popular or everyone else is using them. In fact, try my Goldilocks Approach to hashtagging. Use hashtags that have anywhere between 3,000 and 500,000 hits; less than that and no one is really searching those tags anyway and more, you'll just get lost in the shuffle as soon as you post. In my business, I use tags like "small business owner," "support small," and "marketing tips." My target audience follows those hashtags so my posts are being seen by exactly the people who I want to reach. I see many of my fellow digital marketers hashtagging "digital marketing guru," for instance, but what business owner is literally searching for or following the hashtag "digital marketing guru?" None of them. The eyes that will see that post? Other digital marketers, which is not who I'm interested in reaching. So when I say start hashtagging smarter, I mean it. Hashtag marketing is an actual thing and doing it effectively will pay off over and over in your business.
