I manage a Twitter account with almost 7,000 followers day and night, and the biggest social media faux pas I see over and over again is poor hashtag etiquette. In order to better serve the world as a professional social media manager, I offer the following advice for veteran Twitter users and novices alike.
#Too #Many #Hashtags
It’s incredibly common to see posts (especially by teens) who want to put a #hashtag #on #every #thing #ortheydothiswithalongsentencefragment. Like salt and sugar, hashtags should be used sparingly and only to produce a flavor to your tweet or function for searching. If you’re at a SPS event, be sure to use #learningispersonal or #spslearning but not both. Also, there are a lot of hashtags out there that are already claimed and in use. Before you attempt to become trending, do a quick search and discover if the hashtag you’re wanting to use isn’t already in use.
Hashtags on Facebook
Even though Facebook has added this really cool Trending feature on your News Feed that is different than Twitter’s, hashtags are still predominately a Twitter game. Do not go hashtagging all over the place on Facebook; searching trending topics on Facebook is not its primary function and the Facebook hashtag search module just isn’t supported for #mylife or #SGF like Twitter is. However, one specific hashtag designed for content searches is appropriate and acceptable.
Follower-building hashtags
Although very popular in the beginning of hashtags of lore, #FF or #FollowFriday has gone the way of the world and is no longer vogue, posh or acceptable by any social media managers’ standards (it’s so 2009). In a world that moves quickly, #Like4Like and #FollowBack just turn faux popularity contests. Brands and individuals should want authentic, engaged audiences – those perusing the internet for artificial numbers to inflate their personal Klout score never create a real impact on social media.