Hashtags are an important part of any social media strategy. On LinkedIn, hashtags allow you to increase reach, spark engagement, and join relevant conversations. Choosing the right hashtags to use on your LinkedIn business page can help attract more followers, drive traffic, and boost brand awareness. This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know about using hashtags effectively on LinkedIn.
Why Use Hashtags on LinkedIn?
Here are some of the key benefits of using hashtags on your LinkedIn business page:
– Increased Discovery – Hashtags make your content more discoverable in LinkedIn’s algorithm and search. When people search for or click on a hashtag, your content has a chance of appearing.
– Reach Beyond Connections – Unlike other social platforms, LinkedIn’s algorithm shows hashtagged posts to users beyond just your 1st-degree connections. This expands your potential reach.
– Join Larger Conversations – Strategic hashtags allow you to participate in larger discussions and topics related to your industry or niche. This raises awareness.
– Engagement – Posts with relevant hashtags tend to spark more likes, comments, and shares. The right hashtags attract people interested in that topic.
– SEO Value – LinkedIn indexes hashtags, so they can assist with search engine optimization when used strategically.
Clearly, hashtags are worth incorporating into your LinkedIn approach. But which hashtags should you use to maximize their impact?
How to Choose the Best Hashtags
With LinkedIn’s audience of 610+ million professionals, the hashtag options are endless. But you’ll get the best results by being selective and strategic with your hashtag usage. Here are tips on choosing which hashtags to use:
– Related to Your Industry – Include hashtags about your specific business, products, services, skills, certifications etc. These attract your target audience.
– Associated with Your Content – Whatever you are posting about, include hashtags directly related to that content topic. This helps people find your post.
– Common Events/Holidays – Tap into trending hashtags around major events, conferences, or holidays your audience cares about. Timeliness can boost engagement.
– Location-Based – Local hashtags like #MiamiBiz or #NYCJobs make your posts visible to audiences in those areas.
– Branded Hashtags – Create 1-2 branded hashtags unique to your company and encourage followers to use them. This builds recognition.
– Trending & Popular – Keep an eye on “trending now” sections to join hot topics. But assess if they fit your brand before jumping in.
– Not Too Broad or Niche – Find a balance between overly broad hashtags with no focus and ones too niche to reach anyone.
– Consistent Mixed Use – Rotate a consistent set of branded, industry, content-specific hashtags from post to post. But also mix in new relevant ones.
– Check Use By Competitors – See which hashtags businesses like yours are using successfully to identify options.
– Monitor Performance – Try new hashtags and see which ones drive the most engagement. Drop ones with minimal results.
With some strategic selection, you can identify and craft a strong mix of hashtags tailored to your LinkedIn audience.
Best Practices for Using Hashtags on LinkedIn
Once you’ve determined which hashtags to use, you’ll need to incorporate them into your content effectively. Here are some top tips for hashtag best practices on LinkedIn:
– Place hashtags at the end of your post or caption rather than the beginning. It looks cleaner.
– Only include hashtags on natively uploaded image posts, not shares.
– Use a mix of branded, industry, content, and trending hashtags in each post. Don’t repeat the exact same ones.
– Limit your hashtags per post to 5-10 for optimal results. Too many is spammy.
– Write out hashtags fully instead of trying to shorten words creatively. #SocialMediaMarketing reads better than #SocMedMark.
– Make your hashtags as specific as possible rather than generic. For example, #ContentWriting is better than #Writing.
– Don’t have your entire caption be only a long list of hashtags. Incorporate some normal sentences.
– Include a call to action prompting people to use your branded hashtag to encourage sharing.
– Cross-promote important hashtags by mentioning them across your blog, social channels, emails, etc.
– Click on your top-performing hashtags to engage with others’ posts using them.
– Search for your branded hashtags regularly to monitor their use and activity.
Following these best practices for seamlessly integrating relevant hashtags into your LinkedIn posts can really maximize their visibility and performance.
Examples of Top LinkedIn Hashtags
To give you a better idea of the types of strategic hashtags you could be utilizing, here is a list of examples across different categories:
Industry & Niche:
#SaaS #EdTech #Fintech #AdTech #MarTech #LegalTech #PropTech #DigitalMarketing #ContentMarketing #B2BMarketing #Recruiting #HumanResources #RemoteWork #Entrepreneurship
Skills & Expertise:
#SocialSelling #DigitalStrategy #PublicSpeaking #Leadership #UXDesign #HTML #JavaScript #ProjectManagement #DataAnalytics
Brands & Products:
#Hootsuite #HubSpot #Marketo #Zendesk #Slack #Dropbox #Asana #Salesforce
Events & Conferences:
#SXSW #CES #Dreamforce #AdobeSummit #VidCon #AWSreInvent #C2Montreal #PodcastMovement
Holidays & Timely:
#NewYears #MLKDay #InternationalWomensDay #EarthDay #MentalHealthAwareness #PrideMonth
Location:
#MiamiJobs #SeattleTech #SiliconValley #DMVJobs #PortlandBiz
LinkedIn also provides some additional hashtag suggestions when you’re composing a post. Look at these options for inspiration as well.
Tools to Identify the Best Hashtags
Manually researching hashtag options can be tedious. Thankfully, there are some great tools out there to help you identify which LinkedIn hashtags align with your brand and content. Here are a few to try:
– RiteTag – Analytics and recommendations for the best performing hashtags related to your brand or industry.
– Display Purposes – Database of hashtag examples and ideas for different niches. Plus tracking options.
– Trendspottr – Tracks real-time trending hashtag across all major platforms.
– Tag Def – Helps you find additional hashtag options related to your initial keywords.
– HashtagsForLikes – Suite of tools including recommendations and tracking.
– All Hashtag – Compiles statistics on hashtag usage and performance on LinkedIn.
Investing in a paid hashtag research tool is worth the small expense given the time and optimization benefits. But even the free offerings above can point you toward better LinkedIn hashtags.
Measuring Your LinkedIn Hashtag Performance
Like all your social media efforts, you need to monitor the performance of your LinkedIn hashtags to identify which ones are successful in driving engagement. Here are the key metrics to track:
– Mentions – How often your branded or campaign hashtags are mentioned by others. This indicates engagement. Aim for this number to increase over time.
– Clicks – The number of times people click on your hashtags to view other posts using them. Higher clicks signal relevancy.
– Impressions – Your hashtagged posts’ reach, or the number of times they are seen. Widespread visibility is the top goal.
– Engagements – Likes, comments, shares, and other interactions with your hashtagged posts show they resonate.
– Follows – Whether hashtag use leads to increased page follows to grow your audience.
– Leads & Conversions – If you run lead gen offers or campaigns with unique hashtags, track their conversions.
Chart these metrics over time to see which hashtags boost performance and which fall flat. Continually refine your hashtag strategy based on the data. Google Analytics and social listening tools also help compile hashtag analytics.
Key Takeaways
Boosting the reach and visibility of your LinkedIn business page content takes thoughtful hashtag strategy. Keep these tips in mind:
– Leverage hashtags to join larger industry discussions and appear in LinkedIn search. But focus on quality over quantity.
– Identify a targeted mix of branded, content-specific, trending, and niche hashtags aligned to your audience and goals.
– Place 5-10 diverse hashtags at the end of your posts and use best practices for seamless integration.
– Utilize hashtag research tools to find options and track performance over time. Refine based on data.
– Monitor hashtag mentions, clicks, impressions, engagements, follows, and conversions to determine success.
With strategic hashtag use as part of your overall content approach, you can increase discovery, engagement, and brand awareness on LinkedIn to propel your business networking and objectives.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use hashtags on every LinkedIn post?
It’s a good practice to incorporate relevant hashtags into most of your LinkedIn posts. However, you don’t need to force try and add hashtags to every single post. Organic, conversational posts that cover topics related to your expertise or industry are also valuable for engagement. Use your judgment on when hashtags make sense or would feel forced.
How prominent should hashtags be in my LinkedIn content?
Hashtags should complement and enhance your posts rather than dominate them. Place hashtags at the end after your main caption rather than filling your captions with only hashtags. Use sentence case for hashtags rather than all caps. And incorporate some regular descriptive sentences along with your list of 5-10 hashtags. A judicious use of hashtags woven naturally into your content works best.
Should I repeat the same branded hashtags on LinkedIn or mix it up?
It’s most effective to incorporate a mix of fresh hashtags with some repeated branded hashtags on LinkedIn posts. Repeating your 1-2 key branded hashtags helps reinforce them. But pairing those with new relevant hashtags keeps each post unique. Also try to vary which branded hashtags you include from post to post rather than identical each time. A strategic mix is ideal.
How can I make my branded hashtag go viral on LinkedIn?
Launching a viral branded hashtag campaign on LinkedIn takes creativity and promotion. Share the hashtag prominently on your page, website, emails, and other channels. Incentivize your audience by highlighting people who use it or running a contest for the best branded hashtag posts. Craft engaging posts using the hashtag showcasing your brand personality. Connect with influencers in your niche and ask them to participate. Promote it both organically and through LinkedIn advertising to maximize visibility. Consistent use over a campaign time period is key.
What types of posts should I avoid hashtagging on LinkedIn?
It’s best to avoid over-hashtagging certain post types on LinkedIn where hashtags don’t fit naturally. For example, only use hashtags on your own natively created image posts rather than article links you are sharing. Don’thashtag standard text status updates thanking someone or announcing something. Be selective with ha
Conclusion
Implementing an intentional, optimized hashtag strategy is one of the best tactics for increasing reach and engagement on LinkedIn. Driving more traffic to your business page and content leads to brand growth, awareness, leads and sales. By tapping into larger discussions with niche, branded, trending and event-specific hashtags – and tracking performance diligently – you can elevate your LinkedIn presence and achieve your business networking goals. Consistent, quality hashtag use optimized over time will become a valuable component of your approach.