Hashtags will help you increase your reach on social media.
Hashtags are ways to help organize content on social media.
Some people use them for fun. You can add a witty hashtag to a post and get a few laughs.
But hashtags can be much more. If you use the right hashtags you can expand your audience.
You might have a couple hundred people following you on social media. That’s a good audience.
But a hashtag may have another few hundred people following it. And if you use multiple hashtags you can see how quickly the audience for each of your updates can expand.
Let’s focus on local businesses for this list.
Here are ten great hashtags for local businesses to use.
1. #Love
This hashtag is good for many businesses in many situations. Lots of people follow this hashtag all over the world, but it’s still relevant for local businesses.
One reason I like it for local businesses is that they can share what they love and connect with people in the area that share those same ideals.
2. #Travel
Many local businesses rely on visitors to the area for business. This hashtag is quite popular. You can use it to promote not only your business, but also your city or area.
The more people that discover your city the better not only for your business, but for all businesses in the city. People are looking for travel ideas and you can help by sharing content that fits this hashtag.
3. #Photo
Do you share photos on your social accounts? That’s wonderful!
People on social media love photos.
But you can expand the reach by adding this hashtag each time you share one. People love seeing photos so much that they often follow this tag to get even more photo content.
4. #Food
Local life is usually about food in one way for another. Restaurants. Bars. All kind of activities in cities revolve around food.
Even if you’re not directly a food business you can still tap into new audiences by posting occasionally about food. Your favorite restaurants, recipes and more.
A good rule for social media is to post about all the things your customers care about and love. Food is usually one of those things.
5. #Friday
Lots of people are living for the weekend. They’re looking for activities to do on Friday night. Since you’re a local business you’re probably plugged into what’s going on in your city.
Keep track each week and on Friday use this hashtag to share a few things people in your area can do for fun and entertainment.
6. #Home
Local businesses are very close to home. This hashtag is a little broad, but you’ll find that lots of people are talking about their home, which could be their actual house or their city or area.
Anytime you’re sharing information about your city or your office or things like that try adding this hashtag and see if you get a little more engagement.
7. #Tips
Everybody loves tips. They often search for information online. They use Google, but more and more they’re using social media to look for answers to their questions.
You can provide those answers. Look at your customers and think about the questions they ask the most. Look at the things that affect their lives.
Offer your answers and add this hashtag.
8. #Fun
Living life is fun if you make it so. Lots of people are looking for fun things. They’re looking for fun activities. They’re looking for things that look fun like photos and videos.
You can use this hashtag to share news about fun events. You can share fun videos of something you and your team are doing at the office. There’s all kinds of possibilities with this one.
9. #Business
This one is for the more B2Bs out there in the local world. Some of your local followers will be paying attention to this one. It works especially well for marketing companies.
10. #Free
Finally, this is a wildcard. It could be really good or it could be out of your area of interest.
Many businesses have free offers. It’s a good way to get new customers to try you out. You can expand your reach because a lot of people follow this hashtag.
Bonus
Also look to use your city’s hashtag. Something like #Eau Claire or even look for your state, which for me would be #Wisconsin.
If you’re a restaurant you can look to use #breakfast, #brunch, #lunch, #dinner and more. There are lots of food ones out there.
Also look for local events. They usually have hashtags and locals are usually following them so get in on that action.
Quick List
- #Love
- #Travel
- #Photo
- #Food
- #Friday
- #Home
- #Tips
- #Fun
- #Business
- #Free
Conclusion
The key here is to use about 3-5 hashtags with most of your social posts. They work on just about all the social networks now I believe. They especially seem to work well on Twitter and Instagram.
Try them out and see how much more engagement you can get with your updates. I’m sure you’ll get more followers as well.