Hashtag Strategy

In a digital world saturated with someone else's communication, social media allow individuals and brands a direct line to their desired audiences. Posts and their contained messages can be broadcast with the certainty that a significant number of digital users will see them. Yet, even with user-directed message postings, there's no guarantee of actual engagement—that the receiver will do anything more than glance at the sender's digital presence.

If there is to be a strategy for secure, safe, and effective digital communication, we must first understand the nature of the platform we're using. When it comes to hashtag use, our vice is in overestimating their value. Hashtags are useful in two ways: they signal to whom the post is addressed and in what kind of conversation it is participating, and they function as conduits into a larger conversation.

A hashtag is simply a tool. The real power lies in the structure and function of the post and within the digital ecology of the sender and receiver.