Well hello and welcome to
a new episode of the Tizzit
TV show,
a show for makers
and handmade shop owners trying
to grow a successful
business. Today we're going to
talk about hashtags.
Hashtags are a great way
to build a community online
using social media
and to find customers that you
can then bring back to your store.
But it's not always easy to
understand how to use hashtags
and how to make the most out of them.
So that's exactly what we're going to
talk about today.
We're going to cover the use of hashtags
on four specific social
media networks including Twitter,
Facebook,
Instagram and Pinterest.
Stay tuned because at
the end of this video I'm also
going to give you access to a free
download which is a list
of hashtags ready for you to
use, specially created
for makers
and handmade shop owners.
So stay tuned.
Hashtags
are words or phrases preceded
by this sign
and used on social media
to categorize messages based
on that topic. Hashtags have been made
famous on Twitter
and they're widely used on Instagram
as well. But you're going to find them
across a variety of
social media platforms
and people use hashtags for two
reasons.
The first one is to create communities.
So if you go let's say on Instagram
and you search for hashtag
'makers gonna make'
or hashtag 'tizzit circle' you're going
to find people who by
putting this hashtag on their pictures
recognize themselves as part of
these communities.
The other reason to use a hashtag
is to actually
use it as a search tool like
a keyword if you will.
So if you just search
hashtag 'made in Colorado'
then you're going to find products that are most
likely made in Colorado.
And you can do the same
with something like hashtag
'vegan recipes'
and you're going to find posts
and pictures of vegan
recipes. So where
and when should you use
hashtags?
Okay, so for Twitter
and Instagram it's actually
really simple.
You need to use them all the time.
These two platforms work
around the concept of hashtags.
That's the way you're going to be
able to reach out to your
audience and your ideal customer
to then bring them back to your social
profile and eventually to your store.
So you need to do a little bit of research here.
Depending on the platform you're going to use
and ask yourself you know what
hashtags are my ideal customer
is using so that you
can tag your pictures
and your posts using those
exact hashtags.
Now what about Facebook.
I know this might surprise
a few of you
but Facebook isn't actually a
place where you should use hashtags.
The algorithm and the way search works
in Facebook has changed
and it's not recommended
anymore to use hashtags on
the platform.
There's actually a study,
a report that was done by
Buzz Sumo
and that analyzed over a billion
posts from 13
million brand
pages
and realized that those that
used hashtags
didn't perform quite as well
as posts that didn't use
them. In other words if
you don't use them you have
a better chance of reaching a wider
audience on Facebook.
Now,
what about Pinterest? Pinterest is one
of my favourite platforms
and the reason for that is that it's
not really like a social media
platform. It's more like a search
engine really.
So you go in and you type a few keywords
and then all these beautiful images
and posts pop up depending on the
keywords you've used.
And so up until really
really recently you would have heard me
say to you 'don't use
hashtags on Pinterest'
because Pinterest was
actually saying they're not going to
rank really well.
People were trying to use hashtags,
but because we don't want
you to use them and we have a different way
of ranking our images on
the platform.
But up until maybe
two weeks ago this was true.
But it is changing
and Pinterest has officially
announced that they are trying to
reintroduce hashtags to the platform
and that soon
there will be a way of ranking your
posts and images using hashtags
as well.
So I don't have the full details on
this and are trying to
test it out myself at the moment
so that I can come back
and do another video just
on that and report to you
what I've learned and what I recommend
you do. So how do you manage
to find hashtags that
are actually going to help you get
more sales?
That's what we want right.
So remember
that good hashtag has
three main criteria.
The first one is that it describes
what your brand
and your shop is about.
Seems pretty straightforward
but it's important to remember that.
The second one is that your
customers would actually
search for the hashtags
on the platform.
So something like
'jewelry love' would work if you're
selling you know necklaces
and rings.
But if you're selling something
like handmade soap you
wouldn't want to use something like
hashtag 'soap making' because
in this case you are going to
track your competitors
or people who are trying
to do it
yourself at home.
So the are trying to look for inspiration
or do it yourself
blog post to explain to them how to
actually make soap.
And that's not who you want to attract to your
page, you want to attract people who
are looking to actually buy
a premade soap.
So be careful
with that and really ask yourself 'Would
my ideal customer use
and search for this tag'.
And then finally it's a matter
of numbers. So you DON'T want to use a
hashtag that's overly used.
If you only have
a couple of hundreds
or thousands of followers
because you're going to get
lost in the sea
of other people using this hashtags
that have a better,
bigger audience.
You don't want to do
the opposite either which is
using something that no one is using.
So if you find a tag that's been
used 200 times
that's not enough to put you
and your products in front of
enough eyes.
So as a rule of thumb
you want to look for something that's
in between the 10000
and 500000
mark. Thanks for watching this
video and as promised you can
go and get your free list
of hashtags that you can use on social
to promote your handmade shop.
Go to www.tizzit.co/free
and you'll get access to not only the
list of tags that I promised
but also to 20
or more resources to help
you start, grow
and profit from your handmade shop.
I'll put the link below the
video as well so make sure you go
and check it out. And if you want to join
a community of makers
and handmade shop owners where you can ask as
many questions as you need
and get all the answers you've
ever dreamed of then go
and check out a free community
called Tizzit Circle.
It's a free Facebook group
and I'm putting the
link just below the video. See you next week!