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Thursday, August 4, 2016

Hashtags: The New Miracle Cure by @JacquieRogers #HoneyBeaulieu


Hashtags – The New Miracle Cure


Hashtag: a search string preceded by a #. (Example: #amreading or #mariners)

All authors need a hashtag, we’re told. I admit, I’m a late comer to this party, but I finally caved.

And now? Well, I have to admit, I find them useful. I use the same ones on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Some of my readers use my hashtags, too, and it’s always exciting to see one of those posts—which, by the way, I wouldn’t have seen if it weren’t for the amazing search abilities that hashtags afford. You can click on any hashtag and see all the other posts with that same hashtag. Awesome!



The thing of it is, if they’d used the term 'searchstring' instead of a hashtag, I’d have used them from the very beginning, because searching, I understand. Hashing, well, that’s done in the kitchen, so I had a total disconnect there. But now I’ve got it. Finally.

Let’s wade right in and talk about the different types. And remember, they’re not case sensitive, so the caps are just for ease of reading.

Branding Hashtags
These are for identifying you or your product. I have three:
#JacquieRogers
#HeartsOfOwyhee
#HoneyBeaulieu

All posts that have to do with your professional life (meaning not the cat videos) should have your author name hashtag on them. I admit that I only do this on Twitter and Instagram. Facebook’s hashtag search isn’t nearly as powerful. Also, Facebook didn’t utilize hashtags in the beginning, so I didn’t get used to using them.

You can have more than one branding hashtag on a status update. Example tweet:

Cole’s dilemma: Hang? Or marry? MUCH ADO ABOUT MARSHALS amzn.com/B00RW84YRS #HeartsOfOwyhee #JacquieRogers

Of course, on Facebook you’re better off with a more verbose status update:

Cole has to choose whether to tell the truth and hang, or lie and end up married to the mayor’s daughter. MUCH ADO ABOUT MARSHALS (Hearts of Owyhee #2). “This book made me laugh out loud a lot, not only because of the dialogue but because of the characterization... If you like to close a book with a smile on your face, this is the book for you.” Masquerade Crew review http://amzn.com/B00RW84YRS #HeartsOfOwyhee #JacquieRogers

This is useful in Facebook because if you’re looking for a status update you posted a while back, you can click on the hashtag and find it. You can also use it to track contest comments and that sort of thing. Which we'll talk about later.

Event Hashtags
I had an event in Silver City, Idaho, in June and the hashtag was:
#JacquieRogersAdo2016

Yes, that’s too long. No, we couldn’t figure out a better one. So there it is. Why is this important? Because when people who attended the event posted photos or raves (yes, because we all had a blast!), I could “like” or “heart” or “favorite” it. No matter where it was posted, the hashtag allowed me to find it.



And you can also Google hashtags. Those used on Twitter and Instagram will show up. Facebook, not so much. Facebook is kind of backward on the hashtag situation.

Contest Hashtags

This gets into fuzzy territory because my contest hashtag and morphed into a branding hashtag. Not sure how that happened. But originally, it was for the Where’s Honey contest:
#WheresHoney

Diane Garland took Honey to London. We posted a bunch of photos, all with #WheresHoney emblazoned in bright yellow.

Commenters guessed where they thought Honey actually was, and at the end of a quite a long time, maybe a month, we drew a winner.  How?  By searching #WheresHoney.  It's the easiest way to find who all posted where, because in this contest, the posts could be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.  Tracking that simply isn't possible without hashtags.

And everywhere Diane or I go, so does Honey. She just got back from Germany and Sweden (unfortunately, that wasn’t with me). Where will she go next? Well, while she was in Germany, she was also in New Jersey with one of my readers, and in Connecticut with another.


All the while Honey was gallivanting around, I was pounding away at the keyboard on Honey’s second book, Sidetracked in Silver City.

There’s two other types of hashtags

Comment Hashtags
These usually express humor or an opinion. Yes, you can still search for them but since they’re made up on the fly, you probably won’t find any others. But they’re fun.



Popular Hashtags
I used #liquor and got a ton of hits on Instagram. Apparently there are a lot of drinkers there. Ha! This photo didn’t get a lot of “hearts” but I did get a boatload of followers. Using popular hashtags can attract a lot of people to your photo. #instagramcats will get you a bunch, as will #pie or #recipe.



It’s worth your while to extract an element of your book and use that for a hashtag. I haven’t done this yet but I’m told I should. So for Honey Beaulieu, I could use #racingmule, #donkey, #longears, #ghost, #oldwest, #poker...these are all relatively popular hashtags. So I’m thinking about it.


So that’s the hashtag (searchstring) lesson for the day—in other words, it’s all I know. If you get the hang of using them, they’re indispensable.


Keep up with Jacquie Rogers' latest news at the
Pickle Barrel Gazette!

Hot Work in Fry Pan Gulch 
(Honey Beaulieu - Man Hunter #1)
Hearts of Owyhee series



22 comments:

  1. This is a great blog. I haven't understood hashtags before but I think I do now. Thanks Jacquie. I'm off to find my own #.

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    Replies
    1. Be sure to do a search on Twitter before you adopt one. Someone already used #WheresHoney but I commandeered it unknowingly. But I'm sticking with it.

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  2. #TrailBoss, I'm still learning about #socialmedia from you. Who knew you're #GoodForSomething besides #zaniness? ;-)

    (Yep -- that's a perfect example of what NOT to do with #hashtags. :-D )

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    1. #Tex, your #Chihuahua #posse could #attractattention, but then there'd be #nolivingwiththem. And I do believe you have me beat in the #zaniness hashtag. #LOL

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks, Mercedes. Which brings up something I should've mentioned--you can't have an apostrophe or any punctuation in a hashtag. There are rules for numbers, too, I think, although they're allowed. #not4kids is okay but I don't think #4kids is, because the leading character can't (or at least couldn't--they might have changed it) be a number.

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  4. Wow! Thanks for the tutorial, Jacquie. I haven't been using hashtags correctly and am so glad you enlightened me.

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    Replies
    1. I still don't use them to their potential. Takes a while to get into the swing of things.

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  5. Jacquie, thanks for making this clearer. I wondered about the #myname and #my character's name. I'm going to start doing it and hope it catches on with readers and friends.

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    Replies
    1. Paty, this is especially important when your FB name isn't exactly the same as your author name. So you should definitely use #PatyJager.

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    2. Jacquie - I'm curious about this as my situation is the same, only on Twitter.

      You're suggesting Paty using a hashtag with her full/actual author name on Facebook? (And the same would be true for me on Twitter, as there I'm BarbaraWDaille, because they wouldn't accept a longer handle?)

      Thanks.

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    3. Yes, whatever's on the cover, in your case #BarbaraWhiteDaille, because that's the name you want to brand. It's also your website domain name. Only thing is, that hashtag takes up 19 characters, so limits your tweet space. It doesn't matter so much on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest. (Yes, you can use it there, too.)

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    4. It definitely is a tweetful! :)

      Thanks for the response.

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  6. Love your books & blog. Now I have a better understanding of hashtags. I'll have to try that out.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Lisa. I appreciate you stopping by!

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  7. Thank you so much, Jacquie. I've been wondering how to do hashtags for a long time. I think I've got it now.

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    Replies
    1. Sarah, the concept is simple, but I was put off for a long time just because the word "hashtag" didn't make any sense to me. Once I figured out it was simply a search string, I was good to go. But it took a while to get my head wrapped around it all.

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  8. I use hashtags sometimes, but I didn't realize the power they had -- and I haven't been using them effectively. Thanks for the education!

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    Replies
    1. I'm still learning. I thought they were for others to find my hashtags, and they are--but the real power is as a tool for a person to find her own. And it also develops a sense of community when others start using it. That's what happened with #WheresHoney. Who knew? LOL

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  9. Great examples, Jacquie!

    I use hashtags, but not to this extent, and I love some of the suggestions for different ways to put them to use.

    Thanks for the lesson.

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Barbara. Thanks for dropping by!

      Delete

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