Growing up and seeing the # key on a Landline phone often made me think about its utility. Only with the advent of IVR I thought a # Key started getting it’s due where it was used as a separator and thus the usages.

# has finally come of age and has found its place & relevancy in today’s ever-changing world. # or #TAGS are a must-have use in all digital communication, & in the world of Social Media today.

‘#’ is a number sign also known as hash or pound sign. The usage of a # has been widespread since 2007 when the sign was introduced as metatags on social media platforms. The usage of such tags was thus popularised and being called “HASHTAGS”.

Chris Messina is the man who can be credited to be inventing the usage of #tags and thus the phenomenon now being used as a way to connect to social media on specific topics, events, themes, or conversation. A # makes it easier to discover with specific topics because a # aggregates all the social media content on the same tags and bundles them on a single showcase page, whereby allowing the content to feature in the feed post basis the interest and information are looking for.

It all started with Twitter where the user could use the metatags and amplify the topic of conversation. The readers could search for the tags and follow the news / information, the trend was widely picked on twitter as the post had limitations w.r.t. the limitation of usage of characters. Hashtags are effectively Keywords of the social media as the search words used on the search engines.

Hashtags are one of the most important action steps to maximise the reach of the content on social media platforms. When a Tag is used, the post begins to appear o the page for the Tags. If the tag is used on the story it could be included in the relevant pages of the story.

People often choose to follow Hashtags as they follow social handles which translates to them seeing the hashtagged post in their feed even if they don’t follow the page/personality/brand. A “#” is a great way of building a community online where a brand trend is communicated.

Tags could be categorised further:

• Daily Tags: #ThrowbackThursday ; #MondayMotivations; These are specific to the days and relevant to the content posted by the users on the respective days.
• Location Tags: #MumbaiCST #Victoriamemorial; these define the locations and the relevance
• Branded Tags: #Staywrogn; targeted towards a brand
• Event Tags: #Bigbillionday; focus on events
• Topical Tags: Tagged to current affairs
• & the list goes on

Instagram allows up to 30 #tags on a single post whereas Insta Stories allow up to 10, 3 – 5 tags is the average on the platform. A few good practices following the #tags are as below;

• Tags used are relevant to the content
• Avoid using very long tags
• Avoid tags which are categorized as spam
• To ensure that the caption reads clean, the #tags could be used as the first comment of the post as well
• Hashtags do not work on a private account
• You can also add multiple tags to the story and hide them using stickers in case they look tacky;

It is popularly understood that #tags increase the engagement by over 12% thus by simple smart tags the post and the fan base can be boosted to a great extent. There are several tools available in the market that assists users to pick identify # targeted.

Instagram doesn’t publicize the list of trending tags, users can only search for words to see the suggestions being thrown up for reference.

Quoting a few most popular Tags on instagram:

• #Love
• #fashion
• #Beautiful
• #Photography
• #travel
• #Instagram

It’s conclusive that adding a #tag is a good practice and must be adhered to and can be mastered over time. However would conclude by stating that at the end of it all, what matters the most is just #GoodContent.