How to Monitor a Hashtag on Social Media

| Updated on March 26, 2024

Hashtags have become an important part of social media – they are everywhere. You can find whatever you want using hashtags and also talk about whatever (and whoever you want). Hashtags have incredible power when it comes to building your brand identity and the power is mostly in the hands of the consumers. Whether you’re thinking about starting a business or you are already a business owner, it’s important to know how to monitor hashtags and protect your brand online. This article will teach you how.

What is a Hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the hash sign or pound sign (#). The hashtag can be used in social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for grouping messages with a specific theme. For example, the #wedding hashtag might be used for a discussion of weddings on a blog. People use hashtags to make their content more visible.

How to Choose an Appropriate Hashtag

A hashtag should be a shortened description of the content you want to promote. Sometimes few words are enough, for example, when describing a picture. Sometimes you can go for a more unique hashtag in hopes that it will catch on.

Quality Over Quantity

Be sure not to use too many hashtags in one post/tweet as it can be seen as spam by followers and may cause them to unfollow you. Also, be sure not to use hashtags that are dishonest. If you post a picture of your dinner, don’t describe it as #puppies. 

Hashtag Monitoring

Once you’ve chosen a hashtag, it’s important to use and monitor it consistently. You should be sure to keep an eye on posts that include it. If someone posts content that doesn’t fit with your company image, take the necessary steps (depending on how much work you want to put into it) to respond in a way that solves the problem.

The faster you react, the better the outcome will be. Some of the companies are renowned for excellent customer service, just because of their prominent presence in social media. They solve their customer’s problems on a public forum which proves itself to be great for their internet image.

To monitor your hashtag, search for it on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You can also use social media monitoring tools like Brand24 which will certainly increase the effectiveness of monitoring the hashtag.

When a hashtag is trending, that means it’s being used a lot on social media. This can be a great opportunity to promote your brand. To take advantage of a trending hashtag, make sure you use it correctly and monitor it closely to ensure that your posts are showing up in the right conversations.

There are a few ways to use a trending hashtag to promote your brand. You can include it in your own posts, retweet others who are using the hashtag, or create a branded hashtag that’s related to the trend.

It’s important to monitor a trending hashtag closely to make sure your posts are appearing in the right conversations. The more trending the hashtag is, the more people are taking part in the conversation. You can use free tools like Twitter search to keep an eye on the hashtag but some tools are specifically made for hashtag monitoring.

Protecting Your Brand

Hijackers can ruin a trending hashtag or create one that includes your business in negative conversations. For example, when Burger King started using #McDStories for customers to share their favorite McDonald’s memories, some people hijacked it with stories about food poisoning and rats in the restaurants. Of course, this situation could be avoided with proper sentiment analysis. It’s important to read the room when creating a hashtag campaign.


Shinely Ainsworth

Shinely is a tech enthusiast with a bachelor of arts degree in English and Creative Writing. Later on, she turned towards technical writing and has been doing it since 2015. From there onwards, she has been consistently writing technical and troubleshooting blogs and articles. Shinely is a writer and editor with 5 years of experience in writing reviews, news, tips, and troubleshooting articles.

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