Facebook #Hashtag Tips for Marketers

Giving credit where credit is due, this breaking news on facebook hashtags is courtesy of #Hubspot, a great source for social media marketing tools and an impressive library full of social media white paper content.   Now on to the breaking news at facebook.

A real concern from facebook users and marketers has always been the limitations when  promoting, researching or engaging in a broader discussion beyond your network of personal friends or paid advertisers.

  "there has not been a simple way to see the larger view of what's happening or what people are talking about."

Taking a page from the hashtag founders at twitter and other social media hashtag followers such as   Pinterest, Instagram, and TumblrPosters; facebook users will soon be able to add a #hashtag to their content too. Clicking hashtags in facebook will display a filtered feed of what others are saying about the same topic. 

So, for those of us in the recruitment and staffing space, it will make sense to always insert #job within every facebook job posting and another hashtag that includes the job title or industry like #nurse, #PSW, #OT, #RN, or #hospital.   I encourage you to research and find "retweeters" in your neck of the woods.  For example @Toronto_Rt will automatically retweet anything that contains #Toronto to their 4800 local market follows.  Hopefully, retweeters will evolve and extend their services to include facebook #hashtags too. 

Here are a few tips courtesy of Hubspot.  

Facebook Hashtag Tips for Marketers

1. When creating a brand new hashtag, make sure the hashtag is original and not already in use by someone else.
2. Incorporate industry or branded keywords.
3. Be careful about sentiments. Remember the McDonald's hashtag fiasco?
4. Promote the hashtag by incorporating it into other marketing channels like email, landing pages, other social networks, etc.
5. Don't hijack popular hashtags that aren't relevant to your content. It's spammy, like in this example (see #8). 
6. Keep it short. While you don't really have to worry about character count on Facebook, you do if you're using the same hashtag on a site like Twitter where you do need to consider character limitations.
7. Make sure your hashtagged posts are public. I'm not sure why you wouldn't be making your marketing posts public anyway, but yeah, don't overlook this.
8. Incorporate hashtags into your Facebook ads!

Currently, hashtags are available only to a small percentage of people and pages on Facebook, but Facebook indicates it will roll them out more comprehensively in the coming weeks.

Here is a link to the rest of the #hubspot article.  http://blog.hubspot.com/facebook-launches-clickable-hashtags .

If you require assistance with your social recruitment strategy contact Steve Jones steve@stevejonesLeadership.com