How Many Hashtags Are Too Many For Your Business?

Twitter gave the world Hashtags. They became so popular that other social media networks had to support hashtags in their messaging system. But how many hashtags are too many on Twitter? Can you really specify the optimum number of hashtags that a message should have? Yes, You Can!

Image: Michael Coghlan (http://www.flickr.com/people/mikecogh/)

You can create a hashtag out of any word. Once attached with the hash sign, Twitter generates a hyperlink for the hashtag and links all the tweets that use the hashtag. So, it is the glue that binds all conversation related to a topic, thing, place, product, and so on. Some of the common reasons to use hashtags include the following:

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  Initiate conversation

  
  


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  Belong to a category

  
  


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  Increase searchability

  
  


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  Host a chat or Twitter conference

  
  


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  Advertise a product or service

  
  

Therefore, the number of hashtags you include in your tweets should satisfy your objectives. And they should be the right hashtags for your business.

Unique Identifier

For example, only one hashtag will be enough to host a Twitter chat or conference. With the right research, you can find a unique hashtag for your chat and avoid using more than one hashtag to conduct the conversation.

Establish Context

However, the search engines aren’t intelligent enough to differentiate based on one hashtag or keyword. People need to use the right combination of words to find the right tweets. For example, ‘Pitch’ can mean a sales pitch, pitching related to baseball, a cricket pitch, and pitch of a screw among other things. In this case, to establish the right context, it is necessary to use more that one hashtag.

Let’s say you provide stuff related to a cricket pitch, you would want your tweets to be discovered in this context. Using #pitch alone will not help your cause.

Using #pitch with #cricket will establish the right context and anyone searching in this context will see your tweets. A single hashtag will bury your tweet deeper than the right combination.

So don’t hesitate to use more than one hashtag if it is needed to establish the right context.

Twitter’s 140 Character Limit

No matter what your specific objective, a business will want to spread the word on Twitter and RTs are one of the most desirable actions to increase your tweet’s reach. You might use more than two tags because you want to get noticed by maximum number of Twitter users. However, most third-party Twitter tools add RT @abc to the your original message.

If your original tweet is long and barely within the 140 character limit, it does not give the other person the space required to attach additional text. This might prompt them to change your tweet message or delete one of the hashtags. Both these outcomes are undesired. Limit the number of hashtags based on your main message length and leave additional space for RT and mentions.

In summary, I would say there is no right number for how many hashtags you use. It is for you to analyze your requirements and decide what is most important for you and adjust your tweets according to your requirements. Jasmine Henry shares some common hashtags mistakes that you should definitely avoid when using Twitter.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/social-media/many-hashtags-many-business-0597578?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=many-hashtags-many-business