How to Use LinkedIn Hashtags to Your Advantage

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Who doesn’t know what LinkedIn hashtags are? It’s literally scattered all over the internet. You might have had your fair share of putting hashtags at the end of your posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Unless your profession involves online marketing then you might not know what it is really for.

Lucky for you in this article, we’ll guide you with everything you need to know about hashtags – particularly on LinkedIn and how you can leverage them to your advantage.

What are LinkedIn Hashtags?

LinkedIn hashtags are one of the best ways to connect with others in your field and expand your professional network. Hashtags on LinkedIn can be used to find relevant content, join conversations, and connect with like-minded people. They can also be used to promote your brand or business. It is a feature that you can enable at the end of your LinkedIn posts and any articles that you write.

By adding LinkedIn trending hashtags to the ends of posts, essentially you are adding a search mechanism for people to be able to find you, your company and topics of interest. For example, when I do a post, I add #SmarketingLab to the end of the post because this enables the Smarketing Lab team to follow the post and its engagement.

From following the hashtag, we can also see if somebody who has done work with us has shared a post and hashtagged Smarketing Lab. When they use that particular hashtag we can see it in our newsfeed, which could have been a post we may have missed otherwise.

How do they work on LinkedIn?

Did you know? The top 1 hashtag of 2022 was #india with a whopping 67,360,203 uses on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn hashtags play a big role in increasing the reach of your LinkedIn posts. The use of hashtags on LinkedIn serves as a means of categorizing your content and attracts higher numbers of viewers, clicks, and connections. This is the most basic explanation of how LinkedIn hashtags work.

By adding relevant hashtags to your content – regardless of your number of followers, you can make sure that your post is seen by more people, which can help promote your brand or business. Plus, LinkedIn hashtags can also help you connect with others who have similar interests, which can lead to valuable networking opportunities.

When people use hashtags, they generally have the feeling that by adding a hashtag to every possible word is best. Genuinely believing that they need to take every single part of their posts, add a hashtag to the start of each word and off it goes to become viral.

Not only does the post become hard to read, but it actually gets LESS engagement than a post with less than 5.

#Imagine if you were #Reading this #Post on your #LinkedInFeed ? #HowDoYouFeel ? Do you see it as #Inspirational or #Annoying?

When using hashtags, don’t use too many hashtags you want to use about five of them maximum. This means you need to think about what words are going to be the most appropriate for what you are sharing, and what will give you the best reach overall. For example, if you have a job vacancy, you can go through and add #CompanyName, #JobOpportunity, #Vacancy, #JobTitle to the body of your post.

It will also mean that when you – or anyone else for that matter – uses the search engine (at the top of your LinkedIn page) to look for specific keywords, posts using those keywords/hashtags will be able to show up. You will be able to see that your posts and profile can be seen by an audience wider than your connections. Which will help to grow your authority and connections.

How to use hashtags on LinkedIn

One big tip with hashtags: Spell the words correctly. I know, you think of course I would spell them correctly, but Word and Grammarly won’t correct the entire word if there is a hashtag in front of it. I have a few handy tips to help with making sure the hashtags you’ve used are spelt correctly:

You can spell the words individually first, then delete the spaces in between and add a hashtag at the start.
You can try putting a Capital letter at the start of each word in the hashtag. This means that when people are viewing the hashtag, they can read it If it’s more than one word, for example, TypeThemLikeThis. It also means you are more likely to notice a spelling error.

Personally, I combine both tips every time #BetterLivingEveryone

To make sure you are selecting the right hashtags, I recommend googling what the top LinkedIn hashtags are or what the best hashtags are for the year or your industry. That way, you can add the right ones!

Of course, if you are short on time, LinkedIn has a feature at the bottom of posts where it will recognize various words and generate popular set of hashtags to use and add to your posts. Hashtags are a great way to be found and to find people a great way to find more information out.

How not to use hashtags on LinkedIn

A big no-no is making a sentence into a LinkedIn hashtag. To make it readable and searchable, it’s recommended that you use no more than four to five words per hashtag. Otherwise, the hashtag becomes way too overwhelming and way too wordy; it’s just a lot to consume. Instead, put one of the words in the sentence as a hashtag – picking the one you think is key.

LinkedIn recommends using 3 hashtags per post, but it’s entirely up to you as to how many hashtags you’d like add.

So, if you are posting about a job vacancy you could include the following hashtags within your post, or at the end: #Availability, #JobOpportunity, #CompanyName #LookingForWork, #WorkWithUs.

Just as you are wanting others to search for the hashtags you are using, you can utilize the feature to find posts and people who have authority or knowledge in areas you are interested in. The hashtag feature allows you to discover new and interesting people, companies and articles. If you have a topic of interest, why not follow the hashtag?

For example:

If you are an architect in New Zealand, you could follow hashtags on LinkedIn such as: #Architecture and #ArchitectureNewZealand. The hashtag on LinkedIn that you follow will be specific to what you are interested in, which means you can narrow the search down to view certain posts, articles and LinkedIn users.

The point of hashtags is following a “trend” that is popular. This means that you are wanting to hashtag words that people would actually follow and engage with. #StopSignWelcomeBay isn’t going to get much interest because it’s just far too much information. It’s also irrelevant information and people just aren’t bothered by that particular hashtag.

However, if you used #RoadSafety, it could be more popular. your newsfeed in comparison to just your connections content.

Use them in your LinkedIn posts and articles

Hashtags are a useful way to categorize your LinkedIn articles. By adding popular LinkedIn hashtags, you make it easier for people to find your content on LinkedIn.

The hashtags in your posts allows LinkedIn members to see your post just by simply searching one of the hashtags you included. So when you use hashtags, be sure to use find the right hashtags for your article and your business. You can also use the top hashtags your industry.

To add hashtags to your article, go to the Write article page and click on the Hashtags button. You can type in any hashtags you want and they’ll turn into clickable links when you publish your article.

Add them to your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn Company page

Hashtags are a way of categorizing content and making it easier to find. They can also be used to start or join conversations on social media. You can use LinkedIn hashtags to make your profile more discoverable, and to join conversations around topics that interest you.

To add hashtags to your LinkedIn profile, you first need to turn on LinkedIn’s Creator mode. Go to your profile and scroll down to the Resources section, located under the headline and analytics sections. Click on Creator mode.
Once you’re in Creator mode, you can add up to 5 hashtags (as well as have access to LinkedIn Live posts, audio events, and the newsletters feature).
Additionally, following popular topics or individuals will recommend posts, people, groups and more relevant to your interests – based on the hashtags you follow.

It’s a quick thing to do and can help you connect with professionals in your field who share similar interests.

LinkedIn Analytics

One of the key features that sets LinkedIn apart from other social media platforms is the LinkedIn hashtag analytics. So, to improve your LinkedIn presence, it’s essential to track your analytics and understand how you’re performing.

One way to do this is by utilizing LinkedIn’s analytics feature, which can help you identify how many users are engaging with your posts and how far your message is reaching using LinkedIn hashtags.

Choose hashtags wisely

If you use LinkedIn hashtags correctly, you could increase your searchability and those around you. By including them, you can increase your company’s awareness and recognition by using your company name.

To wrap it all up, We’ve explained:

The purpose of LinkedIn hashtags
How hashtags should be used
How to find the right LinkedIn hashtags
How to properly put hashtags in posts or articles
The number of hashtags you should include in each post
And provided a list of hashtags for you to use

We hope this article has provided you with valuable insights on using hashtags effectively. I don’t know about you but I’ll definitely use a hashtag on my next post.

Assia Salikhova

Smarketing Lab Co-Creator,
developer of profitable B2B solutions to grow your business.

assia@smarketinglab.co.nz

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