- Hey welcome to The Journey.
Today we're talking about using hashtags with your business.
Let's hash it out.
With me today to talk about hashtags
with your business is Emma.
- Hey Nealey, what's up?
- What's up, how are you? - How's it goin'? I'm good.
So I'm Emma.
I'm really excited to be joined with you today
and go through hashtags.
Let's hash it out.
I mean, you're all familiar with 'em, right?
You've seen them.
- What is a hashtag?
- So a hashtag is essentially
that pound symbol in front of a word.
And then it turns into a clickable word.
- Right, like if I wanted tacos and it's Tuesday,
I just search, hashtag Taco Tuesday--
- Yeah. - Like you were saying
and grab me some great tacos?
- Yeah, so the good thing about hashtags is,
yeah they're free, yeah, it's gonna help you to be found,
but there's still a lot of wrong ways to use 'em.
So I wanna dive into the best practices
of how to use a hashtag today.
So let's hash it out.
- Let's do it!
- All right, cool.
So Justin, how many posts have been done
with hashtag cookies?
- So, it looks like 19 million.
- Whoa. - That's a lot of cookies.
- Okay, so while you do wanna piggy back off
of these popular, trending hashtags,
you also, for your business, you wanna come up
with a more unique one.
- Like what? - Have you done that yet?
- I haven't, no. - All right.
- What's a-- - I'm brand new here.
Help me out. - Okay, totally.
So what's the name of your business?
- Upskill Your Brand.
- Have you ever thought about doing a hashtag
that's just your business name?
- I have not.
- Let's see how it widely used it is.
- All right, so we type in hashtag Upskill Your Brand?
- Yeah your brand name.
- If I can type.
One post.
- Okay, so this is actually great.
So by adding Upscale Your Brand to your post,
then you can not only get more exposure for you,
but then encourage your customers to use it,
and then you can get user generated content.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- So we'll like build the community around that hashtag?
- Absolutely. - And get them to
post that too? - Absolutely.
You'll wanna also research other hashtags
'cause you're not gonna just use one.
- How do I research, though, like--
- You know what-- - Just start
comin' up with names?
Kinda like the brain dump?
- Yeah, kinda like the brain dump,
but when you're on a given platform,
so in this case you're on Instagram,
you just go to the search bar.
- Okay. - And then from there
you can search, try a broad one for what you do.
Something very broad, not specific to your brand name.
- How 'bout just personal brand?
- Cool.
So this way, you're seeing, okay how many
posts are out there with this. - Okay.
- And we see there's 216,859 posts.
So it's obviously more popular than the one
that we used before.
What we recommend is using a combination of the two.
- So when coming up with these things,
I know you said it a little broad,
is there a certain number that I wanna kinda look at
of like how many things are posted?
- Yeah, so you don't wanna go overboard.
Don't do 30 hashtags.
- All right.
- So, we recommend,
so you stay relevant, keep it around three to five.
You can experiment with more, and if it works
for your brand, by all means go for it.
- Okay. - But three to five
is a good sweet spot,
and you're not overwhelming your audience.
And you're still keepin' it relevant.
'Cause we all probably have had that friend
where you look at their picture,
and they're just going on a tangent
of really silly hashtags that just make zero sense
to what they're doing or their brand.
The other thing I recommend, too,
besides just having a hashtag in your caption
is substituting words that you're already saying.
So, I talk a lot about social media
and so when I go and do a presentation,
let's say in Florida at the restaurant food show,
I'm gonna use the hashtag of the food show.
So I get in front of more of the attendees.
I'm gonna use my personal one which
is hashtag laugh and learn.
- All right, I dig it.
- And then the other one I do is, I'll do a localized one.
So that's another one.
So if I'm in Orlando for the seminar,
I'm gonna use any localized.
'Cause then that way someone who never,
they do not know about me, they do not know
what I do in social media, but they're searching
hashtag Orlando for whatever,
maybe to eat. - Right.
- And then I have a chance to come up.
- Right. So, maybe like-- - So it's exposure.
- Hashtags at the venue, too?
Kinda get that goin'? - Yeah, exactly.
And then replacing phrases.
So maybe I do a picture,
like speakin' in the mic at the show,
and I'm doin' this great seminar.
The crowd goes wild.
(Nealey mimics crowd noise)
Someone takes a picture.
I'm like, "Text that to me.
I'm gonna put that on my social media."
So I go on Twitter, and I show this picture
of me with the mic, and I write, you know,
"Out here in hashtag Orlando giving great
"hashtag social media tips for local heroes."
So then you're basically substituting
that phrase for the hashtag.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Makes sense, and it kinda just flows instead of just
that block of hashtags? - Yeah.
And because you wanna keep your captions short.
You know, short and sweet.
- Okay, what else about hashtags do I need to know
to make sure I'm relevant?
- So, just keeping up on the trends.
So this is something that's always changing, right?
So what might be trending now could be gone tomorrow.
So keeping up with that search bar
to know what's out there, what's trending.
You could even Google this.
So then you're super relevant.
- Okay.
And now, is there a difference to the hashtags I use
maybe on Instagram or Twitter
or do we even use hashtags on Facebook?
- You can, yeah.
I mean Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
If you're using them on LinkedIn, I would stop.
(laughing) It doesn't do anything.
But absolutely, just go to each platform.
Treat it separate.
Yeah, they are their own entities.
They have their own algorithms.
They have their own presence.
So I would just encourage you,
if you have one you're lookin',
yeah like hashtag personal brand.
Go over on Twitter see the relevancy there.
I was talking to this guy,
he owned a barber shop and, basically,
business was so slow, he's like,
"If I don't get someone in my shop, like, today,
"I'm not gonna be able to;
"I'm gonna have to close my doors."
So, I was like, "You know what?
"Hop on Twitter."
Of course he looked at me like, where is this going?
And I said,
"Go ahead and search-- - What's a Twitter?
- "Hashtags about getting your hair cut.
"Hashtag bangs or no bangs in your local area."
So we did it in San Diego where his barber shop was,
and from there, we found people, in real time,
that were looking for a hair cut.
- Okay. - So we
started a conversation. - And then got instant business.
- Yeah, exactly!
Invite them on in.
- Thank you so much, Emma, for takin' the time
to help us better understand hashtags
and all the relevancy.
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This has been The Journey, we'll see you next time.