The Key to Social Selling Success Following the Right Hashtags

So you've taken the leap and made the commitment to do more social selling. You are finding the right contacts and starting to use # and @ to get more visibility and traction.

Now...the question is... how to boost your game to ensure you are using #'s that are more likely to reach your target audience? Well fret no more...here a few LinkedIn tips and tricks that have helped me along the way!

How Can I tell How Many (if Any) Followers a # Has?

There are many different #'s you can using when tagging a post. I'm sure by now you have noticed that once you start typing # in a LinkedIn post a list box comes up below and the more you type the narrower the list to choose from becomes. This is really helpful to see what is already out there and to help you avoid typos. But wouldn't it be good to know how many people you are potentially reaching with your choice?

Here is how to do it...

For example... one of the key set of offerings, messages or services that your company has in the marketplace addresses customer environmental concerns. You are wondering what you could tag in your post to boost this message to potential customers. You were thinking #sustainability or #circulareconomy.

So let's look them up!

Click in the search box top left of YOUR homepage and start typing #sustainability

Not only can you see the # we want to look up but it also presents us with other ideas of # we would want to include or use

Choose #Sustainability from the List and the following will appear towards the top on a new page

As you can see... there are over 13M followers of this hashtag so it will cast a broad net. Having said that - sustainability may be related to a lot of industries and products not just IT so finding more industry focused hashtags to a smaller, targeted group may be more effective.

Here is how it looks following the same steps for #circulareconomy

There are 49k followers compared to the 13M of sustainability. Having said that I know #circulareconomy is a term used a lot for HP, HPE & HPE Financial Services offerings so customers following that are more likely to pay attention or be interested in your post. Less followers but may have greater impact! Good news is you don't have to choose - you can use both but now you are better educated on the size of your audience.

But Wait... There is MORE...

• Below the number of followers for each hashtag there is a button that enables you to follow these conversations/posts. As you can see I am NOT following #sustainability but I AM following #circulareconomy. I can correct this by simply hitting the FOLLOW button. What this does is ensures that anyone posting with that hashtag will also show up in my homepage news stories. This enables me to see what people are posting on the topic, to engage in more conversations as well as see content that I can re-post on the topic. If I find that the number of posts are creating "noise" on my homepage I can simply go back and un-follow the hashtag at any time

• You can also see more recent posts for that hashtag on the page below the number of followers. You can scan through them and find posts that are relevant to your industry or interests - these posts will give you an idea of other hashtags to use as well as other people/companies to follow. In the example below - HP has a lot of good products that companies would be interested to hear how they address environmental concerns. There are several good hashtags you can use from Kennie's post as well as engage in a conversation with him on HP products related to Sustainability & Circular Economy.

• If you are looking for inspiration on hashtags your network is using and that YOU may want to follow... look at the left hand side of your home page and find the area that shows the hashtags you are following. Below that should be a link that says Discover more

Once you click that it will open up a page FULL of great suggestions that others in your network are following or that you may want to follow based on your interests and activity. A full menu at YOUR fingertips - an embarrassment of riches!

In Closing...

Hope you found these tips and tricks useful. There are a few other spots on the site that hold hidden secrets (in plain sight) on ways to find hashtags to follow but these are a few of my favorites. The more YOU use these tools - the more you will find ways to optimize your social selling motion and reach more customers with your message!

Leadership Questions of the Week for YOU:

• Did YOU already know about ways to find the number of followers of a hashtag? Do you think this information is helpful?

• What is YOUR best tip to finding hashtags or people/companies to follow?

• What other tips or tricks that I missed that others should know about?

• Do YOU find too much "noise" on your homepage from following hashtags or do YOU feel it presents you with valuable content to share with your customers?

• What topic or tips would YOU like me to tackle next?

Thanks for reading and remember…YOU make a difference!

Please continue the conversation by liking…commenting or sharing this article. You can also follow me on twitter @marciedwhite