‘Tis the season…for seasonal hashtags! No matter the time of year, there are seasonal hashtags you can integrate into your social media content, if they’re applicable. (Remember, you wouldn’t use #dog on a photo of a cupcake, unless it was a cupcake for a dog, or, unless your dog was in the background of the picture hoping for a bite!)
So, in the spirit of seasonal hashtags, let’s go through some of the factors to consider when selecting hashtags. Now, hashtags do have different usage frequencies, depending on the platform. For example, a Twitter or Facebook post don’t typically use as many hashtags as an Instagram post, so keep that in mind, as some of these might apply more to creating your Instagram post captions.
When it comes to seasonal hashtags, a few things to consider:
- Actual (Seasons) Weather: Oh, the weather outside is: (fill in the blank). That phrase actually does have a place in selecting relevant hashtags. Things like #summer and #winter, and their many variations, are ways to classify (or hashtag) a photo on Instagram. So, simply ask yourself what’s my current weather, and what’s the weather like in the item I’m posting, and that can help. Of course, you might post on a summer throwback photo on a subzero winter day with a countdown to the first day of summer, so that scenario could have both seasons’ hashtags! (Oh, the many creative possibilities in social media content!)
- Business “Seasons”: This might get very detailed if you’re in an industry, such as Human Resources, where something like #openenrollment is your specialty, while something like #taxseason is relevant to not only accountants marketing their services, but also to small businesses trying to survive it (and thus justify posting that triple shot of espresso photo)! The same is true for things like holiday markets, fiscal year end and more!
- Activities: What’s happening in what you’re posting about? More importantly, are any of those seasonal, such as #rakingleaves or #gardening? You get where this is going.
- Holidays: Depending on the general magnitude of the holiday, and for your business (for example, a bakery may choose to really amplify National Cookie Day for a week, while the rest of us just observe the day),
- Feelings: How you’re feeling in (or while viewing) a summer photo is different than a winter one. Anything from #hot or #sunburned, to #brrr and #cozy can fluctuate seasonally.
Are there any catches? You bet!
- Banned hashtags: Because of the weirdness of the Internet (if you know my personality, you’ll know say things as they are, and that’s one example!), some hashtags are used inappropriately, and holiday hashtags seem to be some of the biggest targets. As we shake our heads as to why, perhaps our time is better spent avoiding getting caught up in that mix. (Refresher: Using a banned or partially banned hashtag results in your post not being shown to others in Instagram completely or partially.)
- Super-popular hashtags: Remember, it’s good to vary the popularity (usage) of your hashtags. For example, my happy snowflake sugar cookie is a sad experiment on using too many popular hashtags. Result: It got lost in the social media mix, and buried among the millions (no exaggeration) of other posts that used the same hashtags.
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And, without cramming too much hashtag info into this post, one quick side note:
Where can you search for hashtags?
- Within Instagram itself: It’s especially helpful because it’s the source directly, so you can see straight from Instagram is how many uses a hashtag has, other variations you might find beneficial, and if it’s banned in any capacity.
- Third-party tools: It is another tool to keep track of, but they can be helpful with narrowing down relevant topic and industry hashtags.
So, no matter the season, happy hashtag selecting! And, if you need some extra content help, don’t forget to check out the “What to Post” guide!
