Creating an Effective LinkedIn Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags for LinkedIn were actually introduced as far back as 2018, although many users have yet to try them out on the LinkedIn platform. They do work a little differently than hashtags work on Instagram and Twitter, so it will be worth your while to understand the differences between the platforms. There are some points of commonality however, especially as regards their composition.Just as you would find on Instagram or Twitter, hashtags on LinkedIn can be composed of any combinations of numbers, emojis, or letters which follow the hashtags. By making use of LinkedIn hashtags, your content will be discovered more often by others, and it can promote some connections that may prove to be valuable for your company.One thing to keep in mind about LinkedIn hashtags though, is that they should be kept appropriate for a workplace setting, and that means hashtags which may be trending on other platforms might not always be appropriate for LinkedIn. In the discussion below, you'll find some useful information on how to use hashtags on LinkedIn, as well as some tips and tricks you might find useful on the platform.

Using hashtags on LinkedIn

Hashtags can be used anywhere in LinkedIn where you are posting content or articles, and the hashtags will provide a greater opportunity for these articles to be discovered by others who are searching for the specific hashtags you used. To add hashtags to any LinkedIn update, you need to navigate to the homepage and click on 'Share an article, photo, video, or idea field'.Then you can upload, write, or provide a link to your specific content, and add hashtags using the # symbol. To include hashtags in a LinkedIn article you want to post, you simply have to go to your homepage and click on 'Write an article' in the field for update. When it comes time to publish that article, you simply have to click on Publish, which is an option in the upper right-hand corner, after which a pop up window will be displayed.In this pop-up window, add copy to introduce your article in the area labeled 'Tell your network what your article is about', and include any relevant hashtags. These will then appear as comments placed above your article at the time of publication. Keep in mind that once you've hit the Publish button, you will not be able to remove hashtags or edit them in any way. It will also be possible to add hashtags into your Summary or Profile headline, but they will carry the same functionality as non-tagged keywords. Since Instagram has only recently added hashtag link functionality into account bios, it's possible that this will be an enhancement at some point in the future.

A few tips and tricks

Try using hashtags with your copy

Hashtags are definitely not a substitute for outstanding copy, and each of your posts should include at minimum one line of descriptive copy and a clear call to action. You can place your hashtags within copy or after it, as long as it makes good sense to do that. A good practice to keep in mind is to prepare your copy, and then see if some of the most important keywords in that copy can be developed into hashtags.

You should definitely avoid placing hashtags on every word, because there's no point in tagging words which aren't important to the reader or to you, and on top of that, it will have the look of spam. Hashtags should always be used as a useful tool to facilitate and expand your reach for the article which they're contained in, not to clutter it up for the sake of looking impressive.

Include punctuation appropriately

Remember that LinkedIn hashtags are just like hashtags on other platforms in that they can only include numbers, letters, and emojis. If you include any spaces or symbols in your hashtag, that will break the link. This means you can't include hyphens, commas, exclamation points, or apostrophes, or your hashtag link will be completely severed. If your hashtag includes multiple words, remove all the spaces to make it a single term, but you should capitalize each word in a multi-word hashtag, so as to improve readability and avoid having them misinterpreted.It's perfectly alright to include punctuation around your hashtag, as long as it's not embedded in the actual hashtag itself. So if you need to follow your hashtag with a comma or a period, that's perfectly acceptable, and will not break the link of your hashtag. Be especially careful about your spelling, because if you misspell keywords within your hashtag, it will be useless in terms of being discovered by other users, because they will probably spell the words correctly, and they will not match your hashtag.

Find a niche for your brand

There is probably an online community for virtually every industry under the sun, and all these will have their own specific hashtags. By using an appropriate hashtag, you will be automatically connected to an online community which is very involved with your industry, and with whom you can communicate regularly. This means it's worth your while to do some research and find industry-specific hashtags on LinkedIn. If necessary, check some of the other platforms for ideas on these hashtags, and then come back to LinkedIn to find similar hashtag communities.

Ensure that you're using public hashtags

Assuming that you're using a business profile on LinkedIn, it's likely that your profile and all of your posts have already been made public, but it never hurts to check and be sure. All you have to do is edit the 'Public Profile Settings' and choose the option which is labeled 'Make my public profile visible to everyone'.When you do this, your hashtag will be made searchable by every one of LinkedIn's active members, as opposed to just those who are members of your personal LinkedIn network. If you care to, you can click on Post Settings and select 'Public + Twitter' for individual postings, if you'd like to share those posts to both LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time.