With a billion members around the world, LinkedIn has become a crowded place. As a brand looking to build a following on the platform, how do you cut through the noise?
By designing and implementing a sound LinkedIn content strategy, you can gain the attention you need to grow your brand and get the right engagement.
That said, are you using LinkedIn hashtags in your content strategy? If not, you’re missing a golden opportunity to gain extra reach that will take your brand to greater heights.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to effectively use LinkedIn hashtags. We’ll also recommend LinkedIn hashtags that will steer your LinkedIn hashtag strategy in the right direction.
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What are LinkedIn hashtags?
We’re sure you’ve heard about hashtags before, but a refresher is in order.
LinkedIn hashtags are tools that turn specific words or phrases into searchable, clickable links that serve as portals to social media conversations on the same topic.
To add a LinkedIn hashtag to your content (e.g., posts, profiles, and comments), you type in the hashtag symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase (no spaces or special characters, mind you).
Once the hashtag link is created, users or potential customers who search or click that specific hashtag can find your content among many others who used that same hashtag.
By adding relevant hashtags to your posts, profiles, and comments, you’re making your brand discoverable to audiences when they search for that hashtag to find content under that category or topic.
Why use hashtags for LinkedIn?
If used effectively, LinkedIn hashtags can help you:
Increase your reach
It makes sense to view LinkedIn hashtags as a distribution channel. By using hashtags in your LinkedIn strategy, you’re creating new ways for different segments of your audience to find you.
Every hashtag search reflects a searcher’s intent. After all, it makes sense for, say, a LinkedIn user who wants to be a solopreneur to search for the hashtag #solopreneurship. If you’re a business offering consulting services to struggling solopreneurs, using that hashtag in your LinkedIn posts is an effective strategy to generate demand for your services.
Build and grow a community
When a space is created where people of common interests, pain points, and goals interact with each other, you get a community. Using relevant hashtags in your LinkedIn content gives you access to a community that could benefit from your message and offerings.
As a brand, you want to position yourself as a valuable resource and leader within that community. The only way to do that, of course, is to support your hashtags with content packed with utility and resonance.
Promote specific campaigns, events, or causes
When running campaigns, events, or causes for your brand, you must find ways to create buzz and keep the conversation going.
Creating a specific and branded hashtag around a product or event gives interested audiences an engaging way to keep track of updates and participate. If you’ve been around social media long enough, you know how attached huge fans of a particular product can become to its branded hashtags.
How to use hashtags on LinkedIn
There are many ways to use LinkedIn hashtags to benefit your brand. Let’s discuss them one by one.
How to use hashtags when creating a LinkedIn post
To use hashtags when creating a post, just do what you typically do when crafting a LinkedIn post.
At the top of the homepage, tap the “Start a post, try writing with AI” field. After drafting your post, type in the hashtag symbol followed by the word or phrase. Don’t include spaces or symbols. Otherwise, they won’t be clickable, making them practically useless.
Adding a relevant hashtag to a post
As already mentioned, clicking on a hashtag is like entering a room filled with conversations on the same topic. If you want your content to be seen by the right people, add relevant hashtags.
For example, here’s NapoleonCat using the hashtag #socialmediamanagerlife while publishing a meme that encapsulates the frustration social media managers experience when their social media post tanks.
Why does this work? By publishing a post that many social media managers can relate to and adding a relevant hashtag, NapoleonCat made the post searchable to a specific target audience. After all, social media managers have bad days, and they might seek comfort, validation, or help by searching for that hashtag.
Searching a hashtag on LinkedIn
Let’s say you’re a virtual assistant who wants to make a living helping business owners with administrative and creative tasks. At a loss for where to begin, you go to LinkedIn and search the hashtags #virtualassistant.
This takes you to a search results page showing posts that used that hashtag. To find other formats using that hashtag, click Products, Companies, or More posts on the left-hand side.
You can refine your search results by choosing one of the three tabs in the middle: From my Network, Past 24 hours, or Past week.
You can also search multiple hashtags to get more specific results.
For example, if you’re an ecommerce business selling consumer electronics and seek business advice, you can search the hashtags #ecommercetips and #consumerelectronics.
Manage multiple LinkedIn accounts from one place
Manage all your LinkedIn comments and conversations from one view. Schedule LinkedIn posts and get in-depth analytics reports to improve your strategy – with an all-in-one social media tool.
How to follow LinkedIn hashtags
You can follow specific hashtags on LinkedIn so that posts discussing a topic you’re interested in will find their way to your feed. In fact, one of the best ways to curate your feed is to follow a list of hashtags that cover your areas of interest and expertise.
Every time you click on a hashtag, you get taken to a feed serving posts using that hashtag, along with the option to follow it.
To follow hashtags, go to the home page, click on the search field at the top, type the hashtag you want to follow, and then tap enter.
Once the results load up, click on one of the posts, find the hashtag you just searched for, and click on it. (If the post shared a LinkedIn article, you’ll have to open it and find the hashtag at the bottom.)
After clicking on the hashtag, you’ll be taken to your feed. At the top, you’ll see the specific hashtag you’re looking for and the option to follow it. Just click the “Follow” button, and that hashtag will be added to your list of followed hashtags.
To verify if the hashtag has been added, click the three dots icon on the right and tap Manage your hashtags. This will take you to your list of followed hashtags. Should you add to that list or trim it down? Up to you!
How to optimize your LinkedIn hashtags
Right now, many of your competitors are using LinkedIn hashtags to draw your target audience’s attention away from you.
To attract your audience’s attention, you must use LinkedIn hashtags more effectively than your competitors.
Here are some tips to optimize your LinkedIn hashtags.
Diversify your hashtags
You are limiting your reach if you keep using the same types of hashtags. If you want to maximize the opportunities provided by hashtags, mix it up.
To diversify your LinkedIn hashtags, use a combination of general and niche hashtags, and if there’s an opportunity, trending and branded hashtags.
Using general hashtags like #socialmediamarketing or #customerservice allows you to reach a wider audience. But don’t go too broad by using hashtags like #marketing or #business, as these can be too generic and may not effectively target your desired audience.
Use niche hashtags so that you can zero in on your target audience. Familiarize yourself with industry-specific keywords you can use as niche hashtags. You can also use trending hashtags relevant to your niche to attract attention. You can use branded hashtags to promote specific campaigns or products and build awareness for your brand.
Use the right amount of hashtags
When using hashtags, it’s important to strike the right balance. Use too many, and your hashtags will create clutter that compromises or distracts from your message. Also, it makes you look… well, needy. If you come off as needy, your brand will appear insincere and untrustworthy, which can turn off potential followers and customers.
For example, would you want to follow Mr. Spammy below? Thought so.
We recommend using 3-5 hashtags. That said, you have to make every hashtag count by making sure they’re relevant to your post and brand. And make sure there are enough people tracking them.
Again, you can see how many users are following the hashtag by clicking on it.
Use only relevant hashtags
This one’s pretty obvious, but it bears repeating: use relevant hashtags only.
One common mistake users make is using LinkedIn hashtags because they’re popular. In fact, using popular hashtags will only attract the attention of users who don’t fit your ideal customer profile. Before you know it, your pipeline is filled with low-quality leads, which will end up wasting your time and budget with little conversions to show for it.
Remember, the goal of marketing is to attract the right audience. That way, you can spend more time and attention on high-quality leads, putting you in an ideal position to boost sales.
To find relevant hashtags on the platform, do any of the following:
Use the search function
You can use LinkedIn’s search tool to find relevant hashtags. Search for a keyword relevant to your niche, check out the posts on the results page, and go through the hashtags that appear.
Note LinkedIn hashtags that keep appearing and consider if they’re the types of hashtags your target audience is likely to search or track.
Do a competitor analysis
Another effective way to find relevant hashtags is to identify your competitors and check out the hashtags they’re using on the platform. Again, you can click on each hashtag to check out other posts using it.
Does the hashtag have enough followers? Are the posts getting a ton of engagement? Use these questions as your guideposts and choose hashtags accordingly.
Use a LinkedIn hashtag generator tool
You can also use a LinkedIn hashtag generator tool to generate hashtag suggestions.
Web Matrices’s hashtag generator tool is a great example. After you enter your LinkedIn post, the tool will generate relevant hashtags based on your keywords.
The most popular LinkedIn hashtags in 2024
Before you use hashtags in your LinkedIn content strategy, it helps to know which hashtags have the most followers.
Again, ‘popular’ doesn’t mean ‘relevant,’ so use hashtags your target audience will likely search or follow. And don’t forget to sprinkle in niche hashtags to zoom in on your audience.
If you want to expand your reach to a different segment of your target audience, you can pick from the list of popular hashtags below.
Without further ado, here are the most popular LinkedIn hashtags in 2024:
- #innovation – 38,411,129 followers
- #management – 35,598,286 followers
- #humanresources – 32,898,825 followers
- #digitalmarketing – 27,095,863 followers
- #technology – 26,161,748 followers
- #creativity – 24,925,069 followers
- #future – 24,304,980 followers
- #futurism – 23,219,190 followers
- #entrepreneurship – 22,469,540 followers
- #careers – 22,286,006 followers
- #markets – 22,001,983 followers
- #startups – 21,011,950 followers
- #marketing – 20,178,414 followers
- #socialmedia – 19,491,703 followers
- #venture capital – 19,100,660 followers
- #socialnetworking – 18,826,357 followers
- #leanstartups – 18,782,560 followers
- #branding – 17,838,214 followers
- #advertisingandmarketing – 17,002,362 followers
- #motivation – 15,629,846 followers
- #personaldevelopment – 14,529,875 followers
- #investing – 14,249,587 followers
- #jobinterviews – 14,171,761 followers
- #sustainability – 13,162,614 followers
- #personalbranding – 10,350,194 followers
- #education – 9,545,127 followers
- #customerrelations – 8,514,104 followers
- #productivity – 8,363,545 followers
- #sales – 5,826,765 followers
- #socialentrepreneurship – 5,746,331 followers
Wrap up
Yes, an effective LinkedIn hashtag strategy can amplify your reach on the business-oriented social media platform. But it won’t give you the desired results if your LinkedIn posts are boring, bland, and unfocused.
Do you want your LinkedIn hashtags to continue bringing in high-quality leads? Then focus on publishing posts that resonate with your target audience.
It’s not easy, but it helps to position yourself to streamline and optimize your content creation process.
With NapoleonCat’s LinkedIn management tools for business, you can schedule your LinkedIn content, manage your comments in one view, and analyze performance both with in-app dashboards and PDF reports.
We highly recommend you test NapoleonCat for free – no credit card required 😉
Manage multiple LinkedIn accounts from one place
Manage all your LinkedIn comments and conversations from one view. Schedule LinkedIn posts and get in-depth analytics reports to improve your strategy – with an all-in-one social media tool.
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- LinkedIn Content Strategy 101: What to Post and How
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