If you’re on any form of social media, then you’ve seen one particular symbol being used all of the time. It’s called the #hashtag, and you either love it or you hate it.

We’re here to tell you that you and #hashtags should be in a healthy relationship. Us at the Duck Pond try to get our clients to learn to love it, because its use has been proven successful when used correctly. When used incorrectly, though, hashtags can be bothersome, annoying and distracting to the content you’re posting.

Hashtags got started on the popular social media website Twitter, but have now expanded to other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+ and even Google search. There’s really no escaping them, unless you’re on LinkedIn which experimented with hashtags for a brief period, but unfortunately threw in the towel.

These symbols can lead to a wider reach for your company and a larger audience. They’re a form of social activism used around the world, and they can even start revolutions. These symbols may be small, but the impact they could have for you is anything but.

Let’s break it down.

Twitter

For Twitter, you want to keep the hashtags to a minimum, but you also don’t want to forget about them completely. Tweets with hashtags normally receive two times more engagement than tweets without hashtags. Tweets with one or two hashtags receive 21% higher engagement than those with three or more hashtags. Tweets that use more than two hashtags actually show a 17% decrease in engagement.

Next time you’re tweeting, don’t forget about this important symbol!

Instagram  

Instagram is vastly different than other social media sites when it comes to #hashtags. For Instagram, the golden number is 11 hashtags. Accounts with less than 1,000 followers received an average of 77.66 interactions with posts that incorporated 11 hashtags in them. This is compared to the average number of 21.21 interactions per post.

Facebook

For Facebook, #hashtags aren’t quite as popular. More hashtags don’t necessarily correlate to more views or a farther reach, but users can click on them to see what their friends are saying about a given topic like #BlackLivesMatter. But, too many hashtags could steadily decrease the number of interactions a post receives — which goes the same for Twitter. Now, with Facebook’s new algorithm change, using a few hashtags in your posts could possibly force your post farther up the newsfeed to potentially be seen by more consumers. Why not give it a try?

The #hashtag is a powerful tool that you and your company should take advantage of. It’s a way to expand your reach, your audience and your company.

IRL

Whatever you do, don’t use hashtags verbally. Trust us, your friends will thank you.

If you have any questions about hashtags or social media, send us a #quack on #SM at @yellowduckmktg.