Hashtag tracking is a valuable tool for brands since it helps them discover and repurpose content from various social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and others.
In this article, we’ll provide a complete guide to hashtag tracking, including how to track hashtags, what metrics to look for, and how to use hashtag tracking to collect unique user-generated content for your brand.
What is hashtag tracking?
Hashtags are keywords or phrases preceded by a pound sign (#). They are used on social media to categorize content and make it more discoverable to social media users. Users can see all the posts and content that have used that hashtag by clicking on a hashtag.
Hashtags are a valuable tool for brands to reach new audiences, build brand awareness, and measure the success of their hashtag campaigns. They allow businesses to connect with users interested in specific topics and provide a way to track hashtag mentions and the engagement and of their hashtag campaigns on multiple social networks.
With a proper hashtag monitoring tool, social media marketers can efficiently collect hashtag-related content. This allows you to accurately track hashtags across platforms and make informed decisions for your marketing strategy.
Why is hashtag tracking important?
Hashtag tracking is essential because it helps you gain valuable insights into your campaigns’ reach, engagement, and effectiveness. Marketing, event, and communications professionals can use the information to improve future campaigns and strategies.
In addition, hashtag tracking can help you monitor the conversation around your brand, industry, and competitors. This can provide valuable information on what users say and their interests, allowing businesses to adjust their strategy accordingly.
If you’re running a hashtag campaign, hashtag tracking is essential to collect the content that your audience publishes on social media using your hashtag. A hashtag wall lets you easily repurpose this user-generated content across your marketing or internal communications channels.
A social wall like Walls.io helps you collect content from hashtags, keywords, or profiles across many social media platforms. This real-time hashtag tracker lets you manage all this user-generated social media content across your marketing channels. You can then use this content on a website, enterprise wiki, or social media displays.
You can even use it on printed material. Here’s an example of a hashtag campaign that generated a lot of content and how the brand behind the campaign used this content.
Start tracking user-generated content published with your hashtag.
You can track content from specific Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube hashtags using a social wall. Here is an example of how it works using Instagram:
- Create your Walls.io account.
- Choose your Instagram account as a “Source,” and follow the steps to connect your account to Walls.io. Add the hashtag you want to track. Additionally, you can add filters to further narrow down your content. Finally, click Add. You can adjust the look of the hashtag feed to match your brand with only a few clicks.
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Here is what it looks like in action. The feed below uses the Carousel layout, but you can also choose from five other layouts depending on your needs. I’m tracking the #petgrooming hashtag, and it’s set to manual moderation, so the content collected is only displayed publicly when the moderator approves it.
The social media wall tracks content posted with a specific hashtag in real-time. Here’s what the moderation panel looks like:
Collect content from Instagram on a hashtag wall.
What kind of insights can you gain from hashtag tracking?
By tracking hashtags on social media, you can gain a wealth of insights into your performance and the performance of your competitors. Here are some of the key insights you can gain:
Reach: The reach of your posts refers to the number of people who see your posts. By tracking hashtags, you can see how many people see your posts and which hashtags perform best. Using an Instagram hashtag tracker can help you measure Instagram insights effectively.
Engagement: Engagement refers to the number of posts published with a specific hashtag and the Reactions they receive from the audience. Engagement metrics are crucial for understanding how your content resonates with users.
Competitor performance: Hashtag tracking can also provide insights into the performance of your competitors, including their reach and engagement. You can use an Instagram or Twitter monitoring tool to gather such information. This social data can help you stay ahead of the curve and adjust your strategy to stay competitive.
Sentiment analysis: By tracking how people respond to certain hashtags, you can gauge public opinion and adjust your messaging accordingly.
Tips for optimizing your hashtag tracking strategy
Choose relevant hashtags: Choosing relevant hashtags that align with your brand and target audience is important. This will help you reach the right people and get the most out of your hashtag-tracking efforts.
Create your unique hashtag: A critical factor for a successful hashtag marketing campaign is choosing a new, memorable, and unambiguous hashtag. This requires creativity and hashtag research to determine the goals for the campaign that will influence hashtag usage.
Monitor trending hashtags: Stay up-to-date on the latest hashtag trends by monitoring popular hashtags in your industry. You can use tools such as Hashtagify or Keyhole to do this. Look for emerging trends that could benefit your brand.
Track hashtags regularly: Regularly tracking hashtags is essential to staying on top of your social media performance and making the necessary adjustments to your strategy. You also want to keep track of all the content your audience creates around your brand using your unique hashtag.
Find useful hashtags: Use the search bar in most hashtag tools to discover suggested hashtags related to your industry or campaign. Including location hashtags can help you reach local audiences when relevant.
Engage with your audience: Engage with your audience by responding to comments and creating meaningful conversations. This can increase engagement and reach and help you get the most out of your hashtag-tracking efforts.
Start tracking content published with your hashtags.
FAQs
What is a hashtag tracker?
A hashtag tracker is a tool that allows you to monitor hashtag content on social media. It helps businesses and organizations collect all the public content around a marketing campaign or event.
What are the best hashtag tracking tools?
Hashtag walls such as Walls.io are among the best hashtag tracking tools, since they enable you to collect content published with specific hashtags or keywords across multiple social media platforms. These tools go beyond basic tracking – if you’re running a hashtag campaign and would love to give everyone a chance to share their thoughts or photos, you can use Direct Posts and other interactive features.
Conclusion
Hashtag tracking is a must for any business or organization looking to level up their social media game. Whether you’re a seasoned social media pro or just starting out, finding the right hashtags and using a hashtag tracking tool are essential steps that should be in your arsenal.