As an influencer, marketer, or even just uploading videos for fun, hashtags are essential on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Think of hashtags as the key to how viewers will find your videos, whether by searching the hashtag on the search bar or through a push from the algorithm from watching similar content.

Where marketers fit in

When posting long or short-form videos to YouTube, hashtags are crucial to brand growth and awareness. Marketers spend hours researching and directing analytics and the competition to determine what will make their content reach their desired audience. With YouTube hashtags operating similarly to SEO keywords, marketing teams must learn which hashtags will likely reach their consumers best.

Marketers across the board have agreed that hashtags should always be used as they serve as free marketing for your channel. Hashtags should be relevant to your video, not overused, and help YouTube itself know where to rank your video. Check out this blog post from Influencer Marketing Hub to learn more.

How to enter hashtags

Entering hashtags is pretty simple. When going through the YouTube pages, they offer a section called Tags. Tags on YouTube are the same as hashtags on other platforms. They allow up to 500 characters worth of words separated by commas as they are entered by the user. These tags are how viewers search for what they want to watch and make videos more accessible to appear on the homepage.

Keep in mind that it becomes easier once the video is viewed and the algorithm pushes it up in search. Don’t forget that you can also place one hashtag on the title of your video!

How to know which Hashtags to use

You can do a couple of things to identify what works best for your video, but this may require some research:

• Check out your competition
• Search by word or phrase
• Trial and error

Firstly, look at the competition, as their videos likely have working hashtags. Adopting hashtags that work for your direct competition in your strategy is acceptable.

Users can also search by posting a # in the search bar to see trends. This is excellent inspiration for creating different content; however, remember what the channel is about and ensure it meets the category it should represent. For example, creating content about bikinis is not in a medium dedicated to home improvement. Therefore, one and the other are nowhere near relevant, and your users and YouTube will think that, too.

Lastly, there’s always trial and error. While this might take a bit to figure out, you can stick to it once you identify what works. Equally, it may help you scrap the hashtags that are not working.

Companies use branded hashtags

Companies, influencers, and marketers alike sometimes work with a brand. For example, YouTube allows companies to create what they call a Branded Hashtag (it would be #DianaAlexiaCreations if I were to post to my YouTube channel) to enable viewers to search not just by account but also by the name of the company on the search bar. Branded hashtags create an additional pathway to your channel, letting viewers see other posted videos they can watch. Viewers usually click the subscribe button when they like what they see.

Youtube videos create a snowball effect when a channel starts to take off. Especially if the content is somehow tied to something that happened in the past, the viewer may go back to essentially “catch up” on what happened.

Metrics-read all about it!

Marketers benefit from looking at their videos’ metrics. YouTube provides analytical tools to monitor individual video performance and overall account performance. This tool tracks views, growth or decline, subscriber count, and more.

If you want to know a bit more

Ready to use hashtags in your next YouTube video? Whether long form or short form, you can benefit from including hashtags in your des

If you need additional help, YouTube has a great resource that explains how its hashtags work.

Diana Alexia Creations is a boutique-style marketing agency that assists its clients with content writing and other digital marketing strategies. Visit our services page online to learn more today.