Heroes in Business - How Hashtags REALLY Work

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Time to finally learn How Hashtags REALLY Work! Everyone you know is doing it wrong, and it's all explained in this episode. It will go against everything you think you know about how hashtags work on this episode of Social Media on Steroids with Dan Shinder. 

Hi, and welcome to the Social Media on Steroids podcast. I'm Dan Schindler, and I created the Social Media on Steroids brand of education, training, consulting, and services to help others learn from my experience of achieving extraordinary results with content marketing on social. I attracted a following of over 1 million people and reach millions more online each month, 100% organically. In this series, I share the strategies that helped me cross all the milestones it took to get there and that we still use. And please, before we dive in, take down my email address in case you have questions. I answer all questions and I take suggestions for topics to be covered in this

series. You can reach me directly at dan at advancedsocialmarketing.com. And of course, the website is the same URL. Follow the blog there and the Advanced Social Marketing YouTube YouTube channel. Okay, let's jump in. Welcome to episode six, how hashtags really work. This is going to be fun. Be sure to check out more episodes that you may have missed by searching Dan Schinder on Eliancer.com or your favorite podcast platform or Google my name for that matter, Shinder is S-H-I-N-D-E-R. This series is on about 40 different podcasting platforms, so it should be easy to find. And of all my episodes so far, this will be the one to either keep you following me because you will have a major epiphany, or many will unfollow me because they insist on being sheeple and following everyone else off the cliff doing what everyone else is doing just because that's what

everyone else is doing, which is crazy. There's no validation in that. This episode will go against everything you think you know about how hashtags work. This episode will go against everything you have heard, seen, or read from anyone else about how hashtags work. This episode will spin your head and make you think I am whack or a genius. And actually, I'm somewhere in between. I'm certainly not a genius, but I have spent a lot of time figuring out what works, and I only teach what works, and what I teach is 100% guaranteed to work, period. There's no argument there, okay? So strap yourself in and hold on tight because I'm about to challenge your model of the world when it comes

to hashtags. And hopefully you will get it. And when you do, you will never see your news feeds and other people's posts the same way. All right, here we go. Ready? Everyone, and I mean everyone, is using hashtags incorrectly. Everyone, unless they have taken one of my courses or workshops and have applied what I teach. I'm serious about this. From your 12-year-old daughter to solopreneurs to legacy brands and the agencies screwing up their marketing for them. Everyone is doing it wrong. If there's one thorn in my side, and there's many, but if there's one thorn in my side related to digital and content marketing on social media,

it's how everyone's got this wrong. And I'm gonna ask you to open your mind and follow me using the same common sense and logic I used to spend hours figuring out what I'm about to teach you. And if you do so, I'm going to save you hours. And I'm going to explain it in very simple terms that I know you are smart enough to understand and logically see how they really work and not how everyone thinks they work. And by the way, don't ask your friends. Don't ask anybody because they'll all say I'm wrong. I'm telling you I'm right.

If you don't believe me, ask me. No, but seriously, like my friend, business author Jim Plouffe says, never take advice from someone who hasn't done what you want to do. On my founding brand, Drum Talk TV, I achieved a following of over 1 million followers, 100% organically. And yeah, there's other brands that have over a million followers and the hashtags

had nothing to do with that. So here's how it doesn't work. Stop using generic hashtags. Stop using hashtags that are popular. Stop using hashtags that you're using because you think they're trending, so it's going to help your posts show up if you use them. I know that sounds crazy, but that's not how it works. I'm going to explain in very simple terms how it doesn't work in just a moment. So what do I mean? Generic hashtags like hashtag coaching, How it doesn't work in just a moment. So what do I mean generic hashtags like hashtag coaching, hashtag life coach, hashtag vegan, hashtag inspire,

hashtag NLP, hashtag NLP coaching, hashtag anxiety, hashtag families, hashtag parenting, hashtag listening, hashtag communication, hashtag caring, hashtag jazz, hashtag metal, hashtag drums, hashtag guitar, hashtag anything generic doesn't work. And here's why. Are you ready for the answer? Can you tell them wound up about this just a little bit? Here's how it doesn't work. Think about this for a moment. If 642,873 other people, for example, are using the same generic hashtag, let's just say hashtag wellness,

but they're using that same hashtag even just once a week. How is your post going to show up if someone Googles that or if someone searches that hashtag on LinkedIn or on Facebook or on YouTube or on Instagram or anywhere else, why do you think your post is gonna show up if 642,873 other people, and that's a viable example, are using the same hashtag? Here's the answer.

It won't. And if you don't believe me, search your own generic hashtags and see. Search them on Google. Search them on Facebook. Search them on YouTube. And you'll see that your content won't come up. Maybe one, maybe two, because it's cached in your system, because you put it in your post. But look at all the other stuff that comes up from all the people using the same generic hashtag. There's no trending that's going to help it show up. That's not how it works. Let's do the math again. Let's make it simpler. Let's say 20 people connected to different industries that you don't even know are using the same hashtag.

Let's say it's hashtag wellness. Let's say it's hashtag inspire. Let's say it's hashtag coaching. Let's say it's hashtag sunny day. Whatever it is, if only 20 people are using that same hashtag that same week, that same day, or seven days a week. That's 140 uses. How is your post going to show up? It won't. It doesn't. It didn't. It isn't. It won't. So the solution, are you ready? So that's in my $10,000 workshop. No, I'm just kidding. Here's the solution. Brand your hashtags. And I'm going to give you an example, a real world example. So the largest music trade show, and for those of you in the music business, you're screwing up the hashtag thing the most, just so you know. But for those of you in the music industry, you'll know this.

But for anybody, there's the largest industry-only trade show once a year in January called the NAMM Show, N-A-M-M, National Association of Music Merchants. And all the hundred thousand plus people that go to this thing, we won't even count the people that don't go that post about it, but everyone who goes to it and takes pictures and videos and they post about what's going on that week at the convention, they post either with the hashtag, hashtag NAM or hashtag NAM show. Maybe they'll add the year, hashtag NAM 2020, hashtag NAM 20, hashtag NAM show 2020. If a hundred000 people are doing five posts a day, that's half a million posts a day with the same hashtag for the four days of the show, that's 2 million posts. How is your specific post going to show up if someone clicks on that tag

or searches it? It won't. So here's the answer. Brand your hashtags. Here's what we do when we cover that show with Drum Talk TV. Everything we post in a given year that we're covering the show, the NAMM show, it's hashtag DTTVNAMM20, for example. Working backwards, 20 is the year. NAMM is the name of the show. And DTTV stands for Drum Talk TV. So we're branding it. Hashtag DTTV NAMM 20. That way, if someone clicks on that tag or they see it in a few posts and then they search it,

only our content comes up. Only the photos that my son Alex our photographer took that are tagged at that come up only the interviews that I've done at the drum talk TV booth come up only the interviews that our other correspondents do at the other booths during the trade show come up no one else's crap only our crap does this make sense so but let's just take a deep breath because again, I know I'm spinning your heads. I know this isn't what you've been told. This isn't what you read. This isn't what your niece says. This isn't what your drunk uncle at the holiday table says about how hashtags

work, let alone the definition if you Google it. It does not help to be a trending tag for your content to come up. You have to brand it. So again, if you're using generic hashtags, hashtag wellness, hashtag happiness, hashtag vegan, hashtag inspire, hashtag carnivore, hashtag hiking, hashtag bicycle riding, hashtag motorcycle, hashtag hiking hashtag bicycle riding hashtag motorcycle hashtag custom hashtag fill in the blank with whatever the f capital f you want if it's generic and you're not branding it it's not going to work try it put me on pause go on linkedin go on facebook go on instagram go on google go on youtube use one of the generic hashtags you've been using, put it in, click go, and you'll see that none of your stuff comes up. It's lost as a grain of sand on the beach of everyone else using the same hashtag.

I want to hear from you. I truly want you to write me and tell me the epiphany you had. Tell me, please write me and feel free to suggest other things you want me to cover in the series. We're not done. I'm just throwing that in there. So how do you brand it? We did it with the acronym DTTV for Drum Talk TV. If you have a business called Fisher Financial. It could be Fisher each tag. And I'll explain how these do work now when you're branding it. I'll explain in just a moment.

But if you're doing posts on loans, if you're doing posts on stock options, if you're doing posts on interest rates, on real estate, on financial advice in any way, it would be hashtag fit your financial and then whatever the topic is, loans, interest, CDs, you know, different savings, whatever it is. So what happens is it links only your content together. That means that if I see a post by you in whatever industry you're in, and I see a branded hashtag, if I click on that tag, it's going to populate with all the results of every other post that you have posted with that tag related to that topic. Okay? So this is called discovery.

topic. Okay? So this is called discovery. I'm discovering your content and only your content because it's linked together by that branded hashtag. Now here's another thing you can do by separating those by topic. You're linking posts that are campaigns, posts that make up a campaign. It's tying posts together related to that one topic that you're putting in the hashtag. Does that make sense? So if my company initials were BCC and I'm a wellness coach, maybe dietary, nutrition, things like that, I could call it BCC fruit if the post is about fruit. And I have a series of posts about fruit. BCC diabetes, BCC veggies, BCC quick meals, BCC lower fat, whatever it is. Does this make sense? I hope this is making sense. It's really very simple. Like most things in life, it is very simple. And like most things in life, people make it complicated. I'm trying to give you an easy explanation as to why

generic hashtags don't work. Here's another reason that branded hashtags works. It's a way for you to compare the different posts linked together with the same tag to see what's working better and what's not working as well. Why would you wanna know that? Well, if you don't know how your material's working, how it's performing, which ones are getting more comments and shares

or video views and which ones are not, you know which things to scrap or adjust. You could look at the things that are getting more views, more comments, more shares, figure out what is it about that that's working that we can apply to things that are not. This is how you adapt. This is how you are flexible. This is how you improve. But if you have no way of comparing your posts, how would you know any of this? So branded hashtags can help you do that on the back end. Here's another tip. Too many tags, because I know why you're, oh, oops, not you. I know why your friends are doing this. They're putting in five, 10, 20 tags thinking all these generic tags are going to make it

more searchable because all these are trending and they're popular. No, that's not how it works. More places to people to click on rather than your call to action. You should have a call to action in every post, even if it's not a sales post. If it's a sales post about what you offer,

you should have a call to action that leads people to a landing page. Register for a workshop. Sign up for your email list. Learn about this. Learn about that. Get your free thing. Download the code.

Get my PDF. Whatever it is. Book an appointment. But if you have 5, 10, 20 hashtags in there, people are going to get curious with all these squirrels and birdies flying and running around, and they'll click on those and get lost down that rabbit hole and completely forget who you were, what you posted about, why they were interested to begin with, and not even be aware that you had a call to action post to lead them to do something for you. Two to three tags at the most. That's all you need. More tags doesn't mean more discovery. Even if they're your own tags, branded tags, don't put too many. Do not, do not, sorry,

getting wound up here. Do not put tags in the language. We at hashtag DTTV are excited to be covering the hashtag DTTV NAMM 20 show this year. That's not how we were taught to read in any language. The brain cannot process this mumbled, jumbled language. Put the tags at the end. It's not helping your posts at all. It's short-circuiting people trying to read it. Don't copy what the 14-year-olds are doing. Don't follow everyone off the cliff who's doing it wrong just because everyone else is doing it. Remember what your mom used to say? Your mom used to say, well, if your friend Joey jumped off the roof, would you? off the roof, would you? Apparently, a lot of you are saying, yeah. Please think about this for a moment. Think about what we just covered. Think about the logic in this. If 642,873 people, or even 20, or 100 for that matter, are using the same generic hashtag. How is that going to help yours

if you use the same one? It's going to get lost as a grain of sand on that beach of all those people using the same hashtag. So brand your hashtags. And I guarantee you, if you run this by 10 other people right now, they'll think this is crazy. This is whack. Why? Because they don't know. They're following everyone off the cliff as well. Stop doing that. I'm telling you, this is how it works. This is how to be successful with tags, okay? And keep your eye on the correct stats. Keep your eye on the comments and the shares and video views. The likes and emojis mean nothing because you can't learn from them. Oh, by the way, for those of you who use Facebook, and Facebook is an awesome platform to use for business, I'm hardly on it

as a consumer. I'm tired of all the garbage on that, just like everybody else. But as a business person, I have worked it. Over a million fans there and reaching millions more on Facebook alone, 100% organically, no buying ads, no boosting posts. And I just found out they're getting rid of analytics. What? I'm still looking into this, but it looks like it's legit. As of June 1st, 2021, they're getting rid of analytics. I'm going to advertise a workshop on how to deal with that, how to get around that. And if that doesn't mean anything to you, you don't know the value of knowing your stats and knowing that that's the P&L statement of how your content marketing is doing. So if you sign up for my email list, you will get invited to this workshop. Go to advancedsocialmarketing.com and sign up for the email list. Okay, back to hashtags. So

if you apply what I teach, you will begin getting better results. I promise. Stop. I know it's going to be tempting because you don't want to be ridiculed by your friends. People are going to stop asking, hey, why'd you stop using hashtag coaching? You're a coach. You've been using that. Hey, why'd you stop using hashtag vegan? What's this other stuff in front of it? How's that going to, that's not trending. How will people know to search for your unique hashtag? I know you might be asking that as well. How will people know to search for your unique hashtag? I know you might be asking that as well. How will people know to search? Don't worry about people searching for your hashtag before they know about you. They will see it in your posts. They will get curious. They will click on it. When they do, no one else's content will come up, only yours. They might get

real curious and say, hey, if this person's unique hashtag is here, maybe they have it on other platforms where I'm not following them or where I am following them or where I don't know where else to follow them. They'll put it in Google and everywhere you've used that hashtag, whether it's on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, whatever. It's all going to show up. Only yours. So stop following everyone off the cliff who's doing it wrong. Oh, it pains me to see this. It truly does. It pains me to see people doing things that they don't realize are hurting their posts and not helping. It's, oh, this is like the save the world gene in me. This is why I give away all this free content so you can learn. And if you decide you want to work with me,

that would be awesome. If you decide you want to work with me one-on-one or with your team, unique to your goals, your challenges, and really learn how this stuff works, that would be awesome. But in the meantime, I'm happy to give away all this information so you can get it right and get better results. So sign up for my newsletter and also get my six steps to daily success, which by the way, is being expanded. I'm adding a few steps. Hashtags is one of them, a couple others, but go ahead and sign up. You'll get the update when it's available if you're on my list. And if you do want to learn more, if you want your team trained, if you need a service provider, who knows how it really works. We don't just do training and education. I also provide the services and agency. Or if you just have questions, seriously, if you just have questions about something from this episode, another episode, something I haven't even covered,

something that's on my website, advancedsocialmarketing.com, just reach out. Or if you have a topic you'd like me to cover, just reach out. Contact me through LinkedIn or through advancedsocialmarketing.com and I'd love to hear from you. All right. So let's do a quick review. You are no longer from this point forward going to use generic hashtags just because everyone else is, just because you think they're trending. And even if someone says they're trending, guess what? They are trending, but they're trending with the accumulative use of everyone who's using them. It's not going to help your post trend or hope them or getting excited here or help them to be found. It's not. So you're going to brand

your hashtags. And you know what? If the name of your company is long, make an acronym. It doesn't matter if they know what that means or not. They'll figure it out. It's in your posts and your posts only. And that's the point. Or put full name and it's multiple words. Use upper lowercase. Make it easier to read. And also do not, I repeat, do not put tags in the language of a post. Put them at the end. And if you don't believe any of this, search your generic hashtags you've been using on Google or any platform that you're on. And you'll see

that everyone else's stuff comes up, not yours. You might see one, maybe two, maybe three, because it's cached in your system on the computer that you've been posting. But other than that, it's not going to separate your stuff from anyone else's. That's what we want as content creators. Make sense? Yes? Good. Okay. Music music please. So remember, if you're serious about what you do, get serious about how you market it. You can reach me directly at dan at advanced social marketing.com and see how I can help you further at the same URL. Check out the blog there and follow the advanced social marketing YouTube channel as well. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com slash in slash Dan Schindler. Happy marketing!