If you’re on LinkedIn to find and engage key B2B customers, there is no need to explain why hashtags are so important to learn about and use. Hashtags lift your profile or business page to the top of search results, so it’s worth knowing how to use them to their best abilities.
Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by a hash (#) sign. They are employed to help people find content on particular topics on the web.
Using hashtags allows you to pop up in the search results on different social media, and LinkedIn is not an exception. It’s one of the ways to let your target audience find your profile among millions of LinkedIn pages.
So, if you’re in B2B sales, you should seriously consider using hashtags, since they can help you boost your profile visibility and will definitely become one more additional tool for your brand promotion. Let’s learn the ropes in this article!
What Are LinkedIn Hashtags?
LinkedIn hashtags don’t differ much from regular hashtags we’re used to see across the web. They’re words of phrases preceded by the # symbol.
Something is unique for this platform though.
There is significantly less content published on LinkedIn than on any other platforms. Besides, LinkedIn only started using hashtags in 2018. So, it’s not that popular way of promotion (it doesn’t mean you should miss out on adding them). It only means that there are not that many niche, non-broad hashtags on LinkedIn than on other platforms.
In LinkedIn’s own words, hashtags are there to help you establish credibility and get in touch with people who create content on the same topics.
How to Use Hashtags on LinkedIn
When you start creating content, LinkedIn will suggest a few hashtags that will suit your content. But you can also do your own research prior to publishing your content.
- Go to LinkedIn’s search bar and start typing keywords you have in mind.
Open the first post that has popped up and click on the hashtag you’re interested in.
LinkedIn will show you how many people follow this hashtag.
This will give you the idea whether the hashtag is worth adding at all. It may turn out that the hashtag you’re considering has a very small number of followers or no followers at all.
How to add hashtags to a LinkedIn business page
Once you’ve decided on a hashtag, time to weave it in your content. Here is a quick guide to how to add a hashtag to your post.
- Go to your business page and start creating your publication.
2. Add a hashtag at the end of your text, using this # symbol before the keyword.
If you want to add hashtags to you business page, simply hover down to the following button:
Upon clicking, you’ll see the menu that will suggest to add up to 3 hashtags to your business page.
How to Add Hashtags to LinkedIn Posts
If you want to use hashtags on your personal page, the process won’t differ from the one we’ve described in the previous section.
Just click on “Add post”, write your publication and add hashtags at the end of your text. The same is relevant for an article — just insert up to 3 hashtags in the end of your text.
It may be challenging to guess whether to go for broad hashtags or niche ones. You may also think about how many hashtags to use for each of your publications. Here are things to consider in this matter.
Broad hashtags vs niche hashtags
Broad hashtags are those that cover the broad topic of your content, like #B2Bsales, while niche hashtags refer to those that cover branches of the broad topic, for instance #Discoverycall.
LinkedIn itself recommends adding 3 hashtags to your content — it means that you can opt for any number you like, but if you want your content to be favored by algorithms — it’s better to adhere to this number.
So, the best strategy would be to add 3 hashtags to each publication, altering their order. You can add one broad and two niche hashtags in one publication, and two broad + one niche in another publication.
How to Add Hashtags to LinkedIn Profile
If you want to stack up your LinkedIn profile with some hashtags, here is the best way to do it:
- Identify keywords you want your page to be associated with.
- Type in the keyword in the LinkedIn search bar.
- Evaluate how popular are those hashtags and pick up to 3 keywords
- Go to your profile and click on the Pen icon
Add the hashtag you want to be displayed on your profile.
5. Alternatively, you can add hashtags to your bio. Simply click on the Pen icon and add up to 3 hashtags in the end of your text.
If you want to remove hashtags, simply delete them from your headline or bio.
How to Follow Hashtags on LinkedIn
Following hashtags on LinkedIn may be a good idea if you want to stay up to relevant news/influencers in your industry. You can also connect with like-minded professionals and even find your leads. When you follow a hashtag, your newsfeed become populated with content, relevant to this hashtag.
You’ll also have a quick access to your hashtags in the left-side bar.
So, in order to follow a bunch of niche-related hashtags, simply hover to the LinkedIn search bar. Type in hashtags you’re looking for. Click on Posts in the menu below the search bar.
Open the post that contains your hashtag. Click on the hashtag.
LinkedIn will show you how many people are following this hashtag, and you’ll be able to follow it as well. Simply click on the Follow button right below the hashtag.
As you can see on the screen, this hashtag is followed by 5 followers. By clicking on the Follow button, you become the 6th!
After you’ve subscribed to this hashtag, the Followed Hashtags menu option will appear on the left-side bar.
You’ll be able to open the whole list of hashtags you’re following currently, just by clicking on this single button.
Now, since you’re acquainted with the basics of LinkedIn hashtags and are aware of how they can help you grow your business, let’s move on to how to analyze LinkedIn hashtags to find those with maximum potential.
LinkedIn Hashtag Analytics
Of course searching for most popular hashtags on LinkedIn manually may turn out to be a daunting and time-consuming task. That’s where LinkedIn analytics tools come in handy.
These tools will eliminate the need to search relevant hashtags manually, evaluate their relevance and popularity. Instead, you can put this tool to use and it will do all the mathematics for you, showing you whether a hashtag is worth using or not. Usually such tools are Chrome extensions.
LinkedIn Hashtag Generator
Along with LinkedIn hashtag analytics tools, there are also LinkedIn hashtag generators, that are of big help. Their primary function is to generate hashtags for you, based on keywords you provide.
Using them is a no-brainer: just type in any keyword and it’ll suggest hashtags, relevant to this keyword.
Top LinkedIn Hashtags
Here is a list of some top hashtags on LinkedIn, sorted out by their topics.
Related to Marketing
- Marketing (20,252,139 followers)
- SocialMediaMarketing (160,826 followers)
- PPC (19,884 followers)
- DigitalMarketing (27,201,917 followers)
- B2B (38,679 followers)
- SEO (131,476 followers)
Related to Technologies
- IoT (123,471 followers)
- AI (596,404 followers)
- WebDevelopment (
682,797 followers) - JavaScript (803,428 followers)
- Technology (26,260,319 followers)
- Java (287,446 followers)
- BigData (7,098,431 followers)
Related to Sales
- Sales (5,846,421 followers)
- Networking (3,563,755 followers)
- GrowthHacking (161,137 followers)
- CustomerSuccess (29,432 followers)
- SocialSelling (41,671 followers)
- Personalization (131,476 followers)
Related to Job Seeking
- Vizualisation (122,083 followers)
- Remote (26,771 followers)
- NetworkEngineer (40,596 followers)
To find the best hashtag for your posts, you can type any of these keywords in the search bar and scour through some most popular posts that have one of these hashtags in them. Find other hashtags that people added to their post — this way, you can dig up lots of hashtags, both broad and niche ones.
Conclusion
In this article we’ve explained how such a simple thing as hashtag can improve your LinkedIn profile visibility, business page, help you stay connected with like-minded professionals & updated about the latest trends in your industry, keep connected to fresh content, and even find LinkedIn leads (upon building connection with like-minded influencers who may have your audience subscribed to their content).
We believe hashtags are one of the most easy, free ways to boost your LinkedIn business page performance. It costs nothing to use them, so there is no reason to hold back. If you have any questions related to LinkedIn outreach — we’ll be happy to help!
Have a good day ahead. 🙂
