1. Work on Your Organic Reach
Everyone has in some way heard about that dreadful Instagram algorithm. The problem is that it disables you from getting organic reach with relatively simple methods such as hashtag marketing. Nevertheless, hashtags can still break through this challenge and bring you many profile visits, likes, comments, views, and followers.
Instead of using too many hashtags, use several specific or precise hashtags that will clearly state what you want to target. For example, if it is a new lipstick from Kylie Jenner, you wouldn’t want to simply use #lipstick or #KylieJenner – instead, use #KylieJennerLipstick or #LipstickFromKylieJenner.
2. Start and Join Conversations
Another aspect of hashtags is that they are useful not only for tagging your posts and Stories but also for tagging your comments or starting conversations. You can also join in on relevant conversations by searching for the hashtags related to the topic that you want to talk about.
If you want to start a conversation, tag your post with the hashtags of the topic you want to talk about. For example, this could be #Oscars2020 if you focus on film or #Grammy2020 if you focus on music. Whatever it is, make sure that the hashtags are specific, precise, relevant, and correspond to the topic properly.
3. Build a Community
It might seem illogical at first, but hashtags can help you build a community if you know how to use them for this purpose. Starting and joining conversations is only a part of it, but it is an essential part that will eventually help you build your own community around your brand. In turn, it will start gradually increasing your conversion rate as well.
The most important thing about growing your own community is to choose the right hashtag and post about it regularly. Alternatively, you could simply grow your community around one of your branded hashtags instead – though that is quite similar to the first option.
4. Don’t Forget Celebrations
Celebrations and various holidays are a great way to attract more attention to your social media page and gain new followers which is why so many accounts plan their content for these periods ahead of time. If you can create something truly unique and special, it will even have the potential to eventually go viral!
Of course, tagging your posts accordingly is a huge part of this too. You need to use  hashtags for each particular holiday separately and add more relevant hashtags to promote your content on peoples’ explore pages.
5. Use Branded Hashtags
As mentioned earlier, branded hashtags can help you build your community. On the other hand, they can also help you increase your conversion rate directly once your brand achieves a certain kind of reliability and your brand awareness grows enough. There are preconditions and technicalities, but it’s worth it in the end.
You need to remember, however, that branded hashtags can be divided into two main categories. They can be either the name of your brand or a slogan you use with your brand. For example, Nike’s branded hashtags would include both #Nike and #JustDoIt among others.
6. Use Trending Hashtags
Trending hashtags often include the ones that are popular during the holidays, but there are also many hashtags that trend all the time. Did something happen? You can expect people to be talking about it, so hashtags will definitely be trending at one point or another. As long as you know how to use them, you will be able to benefit from them a lot.
Keep in mind that clickbait content is not appreciated which means you will need to maintain a certain quality in order to keep your followers or potential followers satisfied. In other words, just do what you do all the time if you usually create valuable high-quality content.
7. Launch Contests and Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are great for getting more exposure, but they can also increase your conversion rate simply by attracting more people to your profile and raising brand awareness. Hashtags, of course, are an integral part of launching contests and giveaways on different social media platforms.
Create a special hashtag for each of your contests or giveaways to allow you to differentiate between them. If your event requires your followers to create separate posts, then make sure they tag their posts with the relevant hashtags. But if you want them to do something else, find a different way to integrate hashtags into it.
8. Listen to Your Audience
Never forget to listen to your audience. In fact, this might be the most important tip you will ever hear about hashtag marketing or marketing as a whole. Your customers should be your top priority, so if you want to run your business successfully, you will need to know what they think and then do everything just the way they like it.
Try to collect feedback regularly by encouraging your followers to tag their review posts with a specific hashtag that will signal to you that someone wants you to see their opinion about your products or their experience with your company.
9. Collaborate with Others
Influencer marketing or even simple collaborations and partnerships with others can help you grow your business exponentially and significantly increase your conversion rate. Even if you have never done it before, it is never too late to start. So, start thinking about how you could collaborate.
Hashtags will be important here just like they are important for launching contests and giveaways. You will be able to ask your followers to use the hashtags of your partner while your partner will do the same thing with his/her followers. This way, you will both benefit from the collaboration.
10. Talk about Important Things
Last but not least, you can talk about important things and bring more awareness to them. This is somewhat similar to starting conversations, but while conversations can be virtually about any topic, bringing awareness will require you to focus on a good cause. For example, this could be a charity that is raising money for something.
You need to keep in mind, however, that you must not exploit the topic. You are trying to bring awareness to it rather than trying to earn money. Eventually, this will improve your reputation which will, in turn, increase your conversion rate.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, hashtag marketing is an integral part of increasing your conversion rate, but you also need to keep in mind other aspects of marketing. Use the advice from this article to get started.
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by Frank Hamilton
source: SiteProNews