Hashtags are everywhere. If you have up to 500 posts on Facebook, you have probably used hashtags up to 250 times. But have you ever read anything about them? Anyway, you are doing that already. ? Hashtags might seem ordinary and arbitrary in use but they are significant parts of our Social Media experience that we should pay adequate attention to. Now, not just how you address affects how you are addressed, how you write and what you write affects the perception people have of you. Unfortunately, many Christians are guilty of wrong use of hashtags in Nigeria.
What is a hashtag?
The first use of a hashtag on social media was by Chris Messina- a former Google employee. He’s been officially credited as the first person who tweeted using a hashtag. The famous tweet happened in 2007. Since then many people have been using hashtags in different ways.
https://twitter.com/chrismessina/status/223115412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-18766417154050670795.ampproject.net%2F1905292322390%2Fframe.html
What is the use of hashtag?
Hashtag is simply a phrase that begins with the # symbol. Mind you, it is not a sentence. it is used to link different posts on a particular Social Media platform together, thereby making it easy for some particular posts to be found when searched. In other words, it is a way of categorising your social media posts. Let’s take it further.
How hashtag should/not be used
- The primary aim of hashtags is for organisation. If you are creating content on ‘how to be a Millionaire in Nigeria’, you can create a unique hashtag ‘#NaijaMillionaire’. This hashtag will be used in every of your post as an anchor hashtag, so anytime someone clicks on that particular hashtag, all your posts would appear. It is also possible for someone to search for your hashtag and everything you have ever posted using that hashtag on a particular platform will appear. This will lead us to another use of hashtag which is for campaigns.
- Companies and Brands build campaigns around hashtags. This helps to drive so much traffic around their content and also to create awareness about a particular initiative they are running. For instance, there was a campaign for the Chibok girls around the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.
- Hashtags should be easy to read and remember. This is the reason why you should not use capital letters in your #HASHTAGS.
- Hashtags also do not #permit spacing. Immediately you insert a space, the word after the space is not hyperlinked.
- A hashtag is a string of word that should not be separated with any punctuation mark. You can use this #bringback – our girls
- When their more than one word in a hashtag then each of them should have initial capitalisation for clarity. #InitialCapitalisationForClarity and not separated with space. #Initial Capitalisation For Clarity
- You don’t put the hash(#) symbol before any word you like, hashtags are created with definite intentions.
- Using plenty hashtags does not make you ‘tech-savvy’ or ‘a Social Media guru’. Although using many hashtags on Instagram.
- Hashtags have some peculiarities on various Social Media Platforms.
- You don’t need to create a new hashtag every time you upload a post, be consistent with your hashtags. Have some hashtags that are peculiar to your brand. There is no award for the person that uses the highest number of hashtags. This is a common wrong use of hashtags in Nigeria.
- On Instagram, using many hashtags helps your post to reach more persons based on the niche from which you took your hashtags but on Facebook a maximum of three is recommended and a maximum of two on twitter.
- It is smart to use #hashtags #inline as part of your#words when the words you are hashing are connected. There is no need hashing the same #word two times as seen in this #word.
- Tell me what else you have noticed use of hashtags in Nigeria in the comment box.
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