What You Need to Know About LinkedIn Hashtags

Have you ever heard of the word “octothorpe?” Meriam-Webster defines it as another word for the pound (#) sign. And ever since Chris Messina invented the first hashtag in 2007 on Twitter, the # sign has taken the social media world by the handle with the ability to organize places, ideas, and more.

Do you even remember when hashtags weren’t a thing on social media? You’ve probably used Twitter hashtags for the last decade and Facebook hashtags since 2013. There are even hashtags specific for Instagram (like #instamarketing). But have you considered LinkedIn hashtags yet?

Embracing LinkedIn Hashtags

LinkedIn is considered the professional social media platform — where you can stay up-to-date on all of the current trends you care about with other like-minded professionals. So, why not? After all, hashtags for a social network allow you to do the following:

• Gain more traffic for your content by connecting them to more individuals
• Follow these hashtags and join in on the social media conversation

And these two aspects of your social media strategy directly correlate with the traffic back to your website and the level of engagement you have with your buyer personas. At the end of the day, you are here to provide exceptional customer service; social media plays a vital role in this.

How Can You Use LinkedIn Hashtags?

Let’s talk about how you can start to implement hashtags on LinkedIn to enhance your social media efforts. HootSuite shares LinkedIn hashtag tips to effectively utilize them on our go-to professional social media network. Here are a few of the tips our team finds most crucial:

Don’t Substitute Your Copy for Hashtags

Yes, hashtags are now considered essential for the major social platforms. However, you never want to replace your great copy for hashtags. Your social media post copy describing your content shared can be a dealbreaker. When you’re scrolling and you see a long post with an insane amount of hashtags, does it really entice you to click on it? Of course not. Below is an example of how you can incorporate hashtags into your LinkedIn Page status update:

We’ve provided one hashtag focusing on the overall theme of the post. There aren’t 30 hashtags snuck in under the ‘see more’ button; there’s one hashtag with one purpose — and that’s totally fine. Social media algorithms like Facebook are getting better at deciphering what content is spam and which is authentic. Nobody wants to be a spammer with their business efforts.

Create a Campaign or Company Hashtag

Are you promoting a free product for the summer? If so, why not develop a hashtag that correlates with your campaign? This is a good idea for two main reasons:

1. It allows your audience to join in on the conversation via your campaign hashtag.
2. The campaign hashtag makes it easier for you to see how well your campaign social media posts are performing on the platform you’re currently using.

Be original. Keep it sweet and straight to the point. Let your target audience know that there’s another human being behind the messages you’re creating. If you need help setting up a company hashtag, you can use LinkedIn Elevate to create one for you and your coworkers to use.

Discover Hashtags Already Created

Are you stuck with where to begin? Click on the search bar in your LinkedIn app and search a hashtag — like #SocialMedia. What comes up? How are people using this hashtag? This question leads us to our next important point when deciding what your hashtag strategy will look like.

Test, Test, Test

So you’ve compiled a variety of hashtags. How do you know which ones are performing well? Do these hashtags actually lead people where you want them to be sent? This is where the fun really begins.

Do some digging. Analyze. Make informed decisions about where you stand with your LinkedIn strategy. And once you’ve decided what’s working for a specific month, quarter, campaign, etc., document it and share it with your team. There’s no value in keeping the information that’ll drive you closer to your goals all to yourself. Sharing is caring.

LinkedIn Hashtags to Get You Going

Before you jump into the exciting world of hashtags on LinkedIn, I’d like to share some popular ones to get you started:

#Networking

#Innovation

#Marketing

#Business

#Careers

#Tips

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