Learning the art of the Hashtaggery

Its simple, right? You just stick a # in front of a word, job done. But what’s the point of the #?

The # is there for you to link your post, in whatever medium that might be, to a word that may connect you with others who might be interested in the same topic. It can help your post reach a myriad of different audiences. The hashtag became popular with Twitter, but you can use it on just about any social media platform. It means that anyone looking for a particular topic can search using the hashtag and find other sites and content of interest. Very useful if you are wanting to get a message out or share information with the masses. According to some sources you can get 45% more likes and 67% more comments on your content by using the right hashtag strategy.

I use a very small number of hashtags on my posts about bellringing, mainly because some social media platforms have a limit on the number of characters you can use, but mainly because I’m rubbish at thinking on synonyms, you know, those other words that are related to the one you’re using. For example, I use #bellringing a lot when I post about any bellringing activity, or sharing information. For some reason it took me ages to connect #bells, #bellringers, #ringing, #campanology. Search these hashtags and it opens up another world of bell related sites, some not so relevant to the type of bellringing I do, but means the posts has the potential to reach a whole new audience.

Up until recently, I’ve never really used a hashtag as a search function to find other like minded topics, but as I’ve got more into using social media, I’m finding out all sorts of useful tips. There’s a whole business made out of teaching people how to hashtag properly. I took the plunge a while back and purchased an e-book on how to make the most of hashtags, but only because it was going super cheap. And, I have to say, I’ve learned quite a bit from it.

The particular e-book I purchased was more specifically focussed on Instagram, the least of the main social media platforms that I’m familiar with but the ideas can be used across the other platforms too. I look after 3 different Instagram accounts, including my personal one. I had them open as I was going through the e-book and putting the suggestions into play immediately as I was reading through it.

I edited the profiles for each account to make them more appealing and relevant so that it instantly gives a viewer the information they need about the account. I looked at the hashtags that were suitable for the size of each account based on the number of followers each account already had. Using hashtags relating to topics where there are too many followers already means that our messages could get lost in amongst all the noise. I thought about the keywords that users might be searching for when they’re trying to find our information. I then used those words to search sites where the ideal audiences would also be looking at. I followed a number of those, then looked at the kind of hashtags they were using and jotted down any that I thought might be useful.

Then its about the engagement. Once you’ve found the top accounts in your topic of interest, by liking and commenting on their accounts regularly, this will help your visability too, amongst their followers.

I’ve made a list of all the hashtags that I think would be useful for each of the accounts I look after and now that I’m starting to use them, I’ll be able to look at the analytics to see how they are helping reach wider engagement.

I shall become a master of hashtaggery!

Worth the wait?

Yesterday I ordered some books from Amazon which I hope arrive during the coming week, as I have some annual leave and therefore time to read them. Amazon told me that they should all arrive the following day.

Today Amazon tells me that my parcel should arrive today any time before 10pm. Thats going to be scary if the doorbell rings that late at night!

I have high hopes for these books. They will help me to understand and do better in the social media world. At least that’s what I’m hoping. I hope they are worth the wait.

According to logisticsmgepsupv.wordpress.com we spend around 6 months of our lives waiting in line for things, 43 days on hold with automated customer services, and 27 days waiting for a bus, 32 minutes per day waiting for a doctor, 28 minutes in a security line at the airport, 21 minutes for our significant other to get ready to go out, and 38 hours a year sitting in traffic. A Daily Mail survey suggested that we wait around 4 months of our lives waiting for the kettle to boil.

Sometimes the planning and experience associated with the waiting process can be extremely pleasurable. Like the smell around the house when you’re baking chocolate brownies. The creative processes of art, cooking, crafting, travel, and a myriad of other things can give as much pleasure during the creating or planning process as the final product does. And when you have that final product, it will be all the more sweet knowing the effort it took to create it.

As I’ve said before, I am an ongoing development as a human being and am trying to get as much pleasure out of the creation of the person I want to be, as much as what the end result might be.

Good things come to those who wait, apparently.

Start as you mean to go on

New Years Day morning. A new year ahead that hasn’t been written yet. C made a cooked brunch. I could get used to that 😋.

This year will mark a significant birthday for me. The day this blog is uploaded will mark 50 days until I turn 50. I don’t have any issues with turning 50, it is but a number after all.

The 12 months before I turned 40 I kept a daily diary. I did think of doing something similar for the year that I turned 50 but somehow never got round to it. I guess you could say that I’ve used this blog as a sort of diary, although there’s lots that I haven’t written in a blog that I would have written in a diary.

Starting a new year and a new decade of life gives me the opportunity to start afresh and start as I mean to go on. I could get used to C cooking me breakfast every day but thats not practical or too good for my health. I could take this opportunity to establish some new habits. Start or do more of the things that I ought to do better and drop things that I should not, do less of or that self sabotage.

I read somewhere on line recently that it can take from 18 to 254 days to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. Now, I’m not one for New Years resolutions, but I have 50 days to do 50 things that will have a positive habit forming effect on my life to take me into my 50s.

Where to start? Drop me some suggestions 👇

Social Presence

I invested in a marketing booklet the other day that is supposed to help you increase your social media reach with the clever use of hashtags.

As Public Relations Officer for both my #bellringing Association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers, this is something that I’m keen to make use of.

The booklet came with an accompanying instructional video with examples being worked through to follow along with. I started to watch it yesterday. Its over an hour long and I was unable to invest that amount of time on it, at that time.

However, there were some great tips for updating your profile bio, so I actually did that on my own accounts and on the Association ones. When I get a chance I’ll go through the rest of the video and the booklet and see what gems of wisdom would be helpful, and put them into practice to see if it works.

I’m still very much a novice in the world of social media and I’m conscious on a personal level, not to let it take over my life. I would like to get better reach but its important to balance social presence with real life presence.