HASHTAGS have gained an infamous reputation on both Twitter, the social media site for which it was created, as well as other sites such as Facebook and Instagram.
The ingenious keywords were not only designed to help Twitter users target a specific audience, but it also enables them to participate in conversations with people who share similar interests.
But many users don’t understand how to properly use the concept, and thus it has, in some instances, gained a negative reputation, especially when used among young people.
Often teens and students use arbitrary hashtags, such as #Live, #Yolo, #Swag or #JustSaying, in the hopes of getting retweets, likes or mention.
These tags only seem to annoy other Twitter users and are seen as immature and daft.
However, it has been proven that Tweets and other social media posts, which contain a hashtags are twice as likely to elicit engagement and by using two hashtags one increases the chance of an engagement by 21 per cent.
Surprisingly only 24 per cent of tweets contain a hashtag. It is also important to note that by using more than two hashtags one decreases the chance of engagement by 17 per cent.
