{"id":12805,"date":"2014-06-17T13:23:08","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T12:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sotrender.com\/?p=12805"},"modified":"2015-12-01T22:00:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T21:00:42","slug":"facebook-hashtags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sotrender.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/facebook-hashtags\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook hashtags: Should brands use them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Users love Facebook\u00a0hashtags! In May 2014 the number of hashtags in users’ posts was two times higher than the number of these posts! Sotrender decided to check the influence of using Facebook hashtags in the posts of brands. We examined a hundred of American and International brands’ pages with over one million fans.\u00a0Check what you can learn from their Facebook performance!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Type Facebook hashtags<\/strong> in Google<\/a>. You’ll find multiple articles:\u00a0Why Facebook hashtags were dommed to #fail<\/a>, \u00a0Too Many Facebook Hashtags Seriously Hurt Your Brand<\/a>, \u00a0What\u2019s wrong with Facebook hashtags<\/a>\u00a0and Hashtags on Facebook Do Nothing To help Additional Exposure<\/a>, to name but a few. Pessimistic, isn’t it? Some people like them, some people hate them, some people mock them (Martin Scorsese included)<\/a>.\u00a0What is wrong with Facebook hashtags? Do they really hurt your brand? Are they uneffective? <\/strong>Sotrender<\/a> decided to check it out.<\/p>\n

To start with, hashtags weren’t introduced by Facebook aimlessly. The purpose was to increase the searchability. It was ment to be a new way\u00a0for people and business to discover and engage in conversations.\u00a0The question whether people really use them that way unfortunately remains unanswered.<\/p>\n

Facebook Hashtags lose popularity?<\/h2>\n

The truth is, however, that most Facebook\"wykres2\"\u00a0users love\u00a0hashtags<\/strong>. We examined a hundred\u00a0\u00a0American and International brands’ pages with over one million fans, among them M&M’s USA<\/a>, \u00a0Pepsi<\/a>, \u00a0Coca-Cola<\/a>, \u00a0Microsoft<\/a>, Gap<\/a>\u00a0and Lexus<\/a>.\u00a0According to our analyses, the average number of hashtags per post published by users in May 2014 was equal to 2.5. This\u00a0means that\u00a0there was over twice as many hashtags as users’\u00a0posts<\/strong>. The numbers are much smaller when it comes to admins’ activity: there were almost 8\u00a0times less hashtags in their posts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Despite this hashtag thriftiness, most Facebook pages use the # symbol. In the three month period March – May 2014 only 6 out of 100 profiles didn’t use this feature<\/strong>. What about previous months?\u00a0After the introduction of hashtags on Facebook in June 2013, their popularity started to rise really quick. The boom didn’t last long and started to stabilize in August. For some time now, the\u00a0average number of hashtags per post is on an upward\u00a0trajectory<\/strong>, however, the changes are quite\u00a0slow.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>

Facebook hashtags – average number of hashtags per posts in time<\/p><\/div>\n

How about engagement?<\/h2>\n

Basing on our analyses, we must deny the rumours that posts with hashtags engage fewer users. It is just the opposite – posts without\u00a0the number sign # engaged \u00a0fewer pages’ fans than these with one, two, three and even four hashtags.<\/strong> The use of hashtags is therefore advisable, however, it is important not to overuse them.<\/strong> Restricting the number of Facebook hashtags to four in maximum, will be\u00a0best\u00a0practice.<\/p>\n

\"Hashtags<\/a>

Hashtags on Facebook – average percentage of engaged users of posts with and without hashtags<\/p><\/div>\n

Big brands’ marketers are careful when it comes to the\u00a0use of Facebook hashtags. Admins of 100 pages\u00a0under examination published over 12\u00a0thousands posts in the three month period (March – May 2014) from which\u00a0none contained\u00a0more than five hashtags<\/strong>. Furthermore, in the\u00a077% of posts hashtags weren’t included<\/strong>. Although, as seen on previous graph, such hashtag downscaling is not necessary.<\/p>\n

As can be seen on the graph below, when it comes to the posts that included hashtags, 78% of them included only one # sign. Two hashtags were used in 18% of admins’ posts, while occurence of posts with more than two hashtags was negligible.<\/p>\n

\"Hashtags<\/a>

Hashtags on Facebook – number of hashtags used<\/p><\/div>\n

Which words should we hashtag?<\/h2>\n

If we trust in big brands marketers’ skills and\u00a0want to pattern our page on better, or at least bigger than us, we should follow some rules, based on simple observations. Here is a Facebook hashtags cloud created for analysed pages’ posts from May 2014. Below you can find several tips that are crucial to follow while using Facebook hashtags.<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a>

Hashtags on Facebook – words cloud<\/p><\/div>\n

Facebook hashtags tips:<\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Share Throwback Thursday photos<\/strong> – big brands’ Facebook marketers use a lot of #tbt and #throwbackthursday, <\/li>\n
  2. Hashtag words connected with current events<\/strong> – in May big brands used words connected with Cannes Film Festival, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and FIFA World Cup in Brasil, <\/li>\n
  3. Create your brand or campaign hashtag<\/strong>\u00a0or a hashtag with which your brand can be \u00a0associated<\/strong>\u00a0– like Guarana and\u00a0#\u00e9dobrasil.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Curious to know what hashtags your competiton use<\/strong>?\u00a0Ask Sotrender Research Team.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Users love Facebook\u00a0hashtags! In May 2014 the number of hashtags in users’ posts was two times higher than the number of these posts! Sotrender decided to check the influence of using Facebook hashtags in the posts of brands. We examined a hundred of American and International brands’ pages with over one million fans.\u00a0Check what you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":14923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1779,1783],"tags":[7,17,479,863,865],"yoast_head":"\nFacebook hashtags: Should brands use them? - Sotrender blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sotrender decided to check what is the influence of using Facebook hashtags in the posts of brands. 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