The Power of Hashtags
The word hashtag began to pick up popularity through 2008 and 2009, slowly being adopted by Twitter users around the world. President Barack Obama used the hashtag #askobama during his successful 2008 campaign, as well as in 2009 during the Iranian protests.
Hashtags expand your reach outside your network, engage with your followers, open new ways of communicating and increase brand recognition and awareness.2 Hashtags are a great way for people to search for topics on social networks that have a common theme. In result to recent events relating to police brutality and Black oppression. The rise of #Blacklivesmatter and its ties to street protests and unjust policing serves as an important reminder of the embodiment and liveness of many events that might look merely like data. This hashtag showcases the community engagement and relevance to social groups as it brought together a lot of people from different social groups to fight for a single cause, resulting in the formation of one social group against police brutality and for the upliftment of blacks and people of color.
Why do Influencers use Hashtags?
You’re probably curious about why individuals utilise #hashtags in their #Instagram photos. But that’s exactly the purpose. Hashtags are used by Instagram algorithms and users to locate relevant posts based on interests.
For example, if an Influencer uploads an image on Instagram on influencer marketing with hashtags like #influencermarketing, #influencers, and #socialmediamarketing, he’ll be able to connect with people who are seeking for strategies to promote their company.
According to statistics, the majority of Instagram users are between the ages of 18 and 24 and the use of relevant hashtags can help connect to this demographic as millennials strive for trendy, relevant and relatable content.
Being an Influencer…
When my Tik-Tok addicted friends told me that being an influencer was a full time job, I did not take them seriously. However, it might seem like an easy job, making short videos and earning bucks sitting at home…but it isn’t.
To apply my learning into real life, I tried to be an influencer for a week, and let me tell you beforehand…it isn’t easy to come up with creative ideas every day. Moreover, your Instagram handle, Tik-Tok account or whatever platform you use must relay a clear and concise purpose to your audience and consistency is key. The algorithm for these websites is administered so that the one’s consistently posting gain more recognition. Yes!…Quality matters, but the algorithm states Quantity over Quality. With that kind of pressure
When I tried my hand at influencing…the only set of talents that I had was a lame sense of humor, but then…standing out is key. Do you remember that one challenge where people started flipping shoes and catching them on their feet to a jump cut where their lousy outfit changed into a dazzling piece of sheer artistry. I gave that challenge a try as my first step of being an influencer, but I had to do things differently because again…STANDING OUT IS KEY.
I use the hashtag #shoechallenge to indicate that my video is to be grouped together with videos following the same trend/challenge. I also use the hashtags #bush and #politicalmemes to target audiences that tend to enjoy political and satirical humor.
Now, you’re probably wondering what #fyp stands for. #fyp is where the happy flowery world of social frolicking takes a dark turn. #fyp stands for the “for you” page of Tik-Tok which is much like the “explore page” on Instagram or rather anyone’s You-tube homepage. Designed to feed you the content that you might want to see on the basis of every past interaction, swipe or click you make on the platform, these social media algorithms evolve.
Influencers started to use #fyp in their Tik-Tok posts to increase engagement by simply hoping to land up on the “For You” page instead of targeting a particular audience. The hashtag #Featured started to trend on Instagram similarly to promote Reels. It became so popular that almost everyone started to use it and that was when it lost its flair.
Seeing users post with a ton of hashtags or unrelated hashtags, random videos with no context have over a 100k likes or reshares makes me re-think and reflect upon the significance of engaging and openly connecting with people. Algorithms meant to assess what is “hot,” “trending,” or “most talked” extract the milk from the apparently limitless chatter available.4 Has the online community been reduced to a mere game of likes?
THE WEB EXPOSED 