Should You Use Hashtags as You Market Your MSP on Facebook?

Spoiler alert: yes, you should.

We all know that Facebook did not initially offer hashtags to help users link related content together, adding the feature in 2013. However, with the feature being available for over a decade, using it as effectively as possible is more important to overcome the noise and draw interested attention to your presence as a managed service provider.

Let’s review what makes hashtags valuable to your social strategy before we discuss how to optimize their use.

How Can a Hashtag Help Your Business on Facebook?

In short, it is all about visibility and building a community.

Let’s do a quick experiment. If I were to go to Facebook right now and type “#oneontany” into the search bar, I would be delivered any posts from our fellow businesses and organizations that included “#oneontany” in their text. We see content from our friends at Super Heroes Humane Society, the Community Arts Network of Oneonta, our local YMCA, and others, all accessible in one place by simply typing in that specific hashtag.

That’s great for them because it makes them easy to find. By increasing their visibility through a hashtag, Super Heroes, CANO, and the rest have made themselves more discoverable by the community. This also helps these businesses communicate more directly with the community they want to talk to and provide their insights.

Hashtags can help you connect posts about different events, boost your business’ brand, and can help keep your marketing consistent across your other social platforms. So, yes, they are worth utilizing—plus, they’re free, so you aren’t making any additional investment.

How to Use Hashtags on Facebook Effectively

There’s a lot of advice out there that we can get behind.

Keep them to a few hashtags per post.
These hashtags should be relevant to the audience you are trying to reach and, of course, make sense in the context of the post. Some advice found online suggests using one to address the audience of the post with the post’s intention, one to highlight the topic itself, and two as a reminder of your services. Try experimenting to see which your audience responds to the best.

Create your own, relevant hashtags and combine them with industry-specific ones.
As an MSP, you are in a unique position. Your audience knows they need your services, but they may not know the terminology to find you. You can use your hashtags to help remedy this to some extent. For instance, we could use “#oneontany” to localize us, then use more generic options like “#ITservices” or “#businesstech” to clarify what we have to offer. Again, we recommend some old-fashioned trial and error to determine what works best for you.

Consider what your audience (and yes, competition) is focused on.
Don’t be afraid to do a bit of social snooping to see what the community says online. What have your prospects been talking about? What have your competitors been focused on in their efforts? Don’t be afraid to use them for inspiration, building on their ideas and communicating more effectively.

Need Help with Your MSP’s Social Media?

We offer various services to assist your MSP in using social media to its fullest potential, from social media management to social media posting!

Looking to improve your social media efforts? Contact us today by calling 888-546-4384!