Social media can be one of the most powerful marketing tools available to small businesses. It gives you somewhere to showcase your products or services, connect with customers and introduce your brand to people who might never otherwise discover it.
But, creating great content is only part of the process. You also need to think about how people will find it.
This is where hashtags can help. When used strategically, hashtags can categorise your content, connect your posts with relevant conversations and potentially help you reach people interested in your niche.
However, adding dozens of random hashtags to every post isn’t a social media strategy. Small businesses need to understand which hashtags are relevant, when to use them and how they fit into a wider content strategy.
Here’s how to use hashtags as a small business.
What are hashtags?
A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the # symbol. On social media platforms, hashtags are used to label and categorise content around particular topics.
For example, a small bakery might use hashtags such as #SmallBusiness, #Baking or #BirthdayCakes. Someone creating handmade jewellery might use hashtags related to jewellery, handmade products, gifting and their local area.
Hashtags can therefore provide additional context about your content and make it easier for platforms and users to understand what your post is about.
The way hashtags work varies between social media platforms, and they shouldn’t be viewed as a guaranteed way to increase your reach. Instead, think of them as one part of your overall social media SEO and content strategy.
Why should small businesses use hashtags?
For a small business, getting your content in front of the right people is often more important than reaching the largest possible audience.
Hashtags can help provide context around your posts and associate your content with particular topics, communities, industries or locations.
For example, a florist based in Manchester might use hashtags relating to floristry alongside location-specific hashtags. This provides far more context than simply using extremely broad hashtags such as #Love or #Happy.
Using relevant hashtags can also help small businesses:
- Categorise their social media content
- Join conversations within their industry
- Target particular interests or niches
- Highlight their location
- Build recognition around a branded hashtag
- Improve the context and discoverability of their posts
The important word here is relevant. Your hashtags should always have a clear connection to your business, audience or the individual post.
How to find hashtags for your small business
Before adding hashtags to your posts, spend some time researching what is relevant to your niche.
Start with the obvious terms associated with your business. Think about what you sell, who you sell it to, where you’re based and what problem your product or service solves.
Imagine you own a small independent coffee shop. Relevant topics might include:
Coffee
Independent coffee shops
Speciality coffee
Your town or city
Local businesses
Cafés
Brunch
Food and drink
You can then search these topics on the social media platforms you use and look at the terminology appearing in relevant content.
Competitor research can also be useful. Look at similar businesses and see how they’re describing and categorising their posts. You shouldn’t simply copy another company’s hashtag strategy, but it can help you understand the language being used within your industry.
Use a mixture of broad and niche hashtags
One of the easiest mistakes to make when developing a hashtag strategy is only using extremely popular hashtags.
A hashtag with millions of posts might seem appealing because lots of people are interested in it. However, it also means you’re competing with an enormous amount of content.
Instead, consider combining broader hashtags with more specific ones.
A handmade candle business, for example, could potentially use a mixture such as:
#SmallBusiness
#Candles
#HandmadeCandles
#HomeFragrance
#SoyCandles
#CandleMaker
The broader hashtags describe the general category, while the niche hashtags provide more specific information about the business and product.
You can make these even more relevant by choosing hashtags based on the individual post rather than pasting exactly the same selection underneath everything you publish.
Use local hashtags
If your small business relies on customers from a particular area, local hashtags can be particularly useful.
A café in Bristol, for example, is likely to care far more about reaching people in Bristol than gaining thousands of views from people living on the other side of the world.
Consider hashtags based around your:
- Town
- City
- County or region
- Local community
- Local events
- Industry within that location
A Bristol-based bakery might therefore explore hashtags around Bristol food, Bristol businesses and independent businesses in Bristol.
Location-based content can be especially valuable for businesses such as cafés, restaurants, salons, photographers, shops and other businesses serving a particular geographical area.
Don’t forget to make use of the platform’s actual location features, too. Hashtags don’t need to do all of the work.
Create a branded hashtag
Your hashtag strategy doesn’t have to focus entirely on existing searches and topics.
You can also create a branded hashtag specifically for your business.
This might simply be your business name, or it could be connected to a campaign, product or community you’ve created.
Branded hashtags can provide a convenient way of grouping posts associated with your business. You could also encourage customers to use your hashtag when posting photos or videos featuring your products.
If customers start using it, their posts could provide valuable user-generated content and social proof for your brand.
Before settling on a branded hashtag, search for it across your main social platforms. Ideally, you want something distinctive that isn’t already heavily associated with another company or unrelated topic.
Don’t use hashtags that aren’t relevant
More hashtags don’t automatically mean more reach.
If a hashtag has little or nothing to do with your post, there’s usually little reason to include it.
Imagine you run a small skincare brand. Adding a trending hashtag about a television programme simply because lots of people are using it won’t necessarily put your products in front of potential customers.
Even if it generates impressions, they’re unlikely to be particularly valuable impressions.
Instead of asking, Which hashtags are the most popular?, ask, Which hashtags are the most relevant to the people I want to reach?
This shift can make your social media marketing far more focused.
Avoid copying the same hashtags onto every post
It’s tempting to create one giant list of hashtags and paste it underneath every piece of content.
It’s certainly convenient, but it isn’t necessarily the most useful approach.
Your posts probably cover different products, services and topics, so your hashtags should reflect this.
For example, a bakery posting a photo of a wedding cake could use hashtags related to weddings and wedding cakes. A Reel showing how croissants are made could focus on baking, pastries and behind-the-scenes content.
Both posts come from the same business, but they’re about different things.
Creating small groups of hashtags for different content categories can make the process much quicker while still allowing you to tailor them to each post.
How many hashtags should a small business use?
There isn’t one perfect number of hashtags that works for every social media platform, business and post.
More importantly, social media platforms regularly change how content is recommended and discovered. A strategy that works today might need adjusting in the future.
Instead of trying to reach a particular number, concentrate on relevance.
If you have a handful of genuinely useful hashtags that accurately describe your post, they’re likely to be more valuable than a long list of unrelated tags added purely to fill space.
It’s also worth checking the latest guidance for each platform you use, as Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and other social networks don’t necessarily treat hashtags in exactly the same way.
Don’t rely entirely on hashtags for social media SEO
Hashtags are only one way social platforms can understand your content.
Social media increasingly behaves like a search engine. People search for products, tutorials, recommendations, businesses and places directly within apps such as Instagram and TikTok.
This means the actual words you use in your content matter too.
If you run a dog grooming business in London, for example, don’t rely on #DogGroomingLondon to provide all the context. You could naturally mention that you’re a dog groomer in London within your caption, profile and video content too.
Think about the keywords potential customers might search for and use them naturally where appropriate.
Your social media SEO strategy can include your:
- Profile name and bio
- Post captions
- Video titles
- On-screen text
- Alt text, where available
- Spoken words in video content
- Locations
- Hashtags
Together, these signals can give both users and platforms a much clearer understanding of your business and content.
Track which hashtags work for your business
Social media marketing involves experimentation.
Rather than assuming your hashtag strategy is working, monitor your results.
Look at metrics such as reach, impressions, engagement, profile visits, website clicks and conversions where the platform makes this information available.
You can then experiment with different combinations of hashtags, keywords and content topics.
Over time, you may notice that particular niches, locations or subjects consistently perform better for your business.
Just remember that hashtags are only one variable. A successful post might perform well because of its subject, timing, format, hook or creative execution rather than the hashtags alone.
Turn social media attention into traffic
Getting discovered is only the first step.
Once someone finds your small business on social media, make it as easy as possible for them to take the next step.
Your social profiles could direct people towards your online shop, website, latest products, mailing list, booking page or other important destinations.
A Bio Link can be useful here because it allows you to place multiple important links on one landing page and direct followers towards the content that matters most.
Instead of choosing between promoting your shop, latest product or other online profiles, you can give your audience one central place to discover them.
Build a hashtag strategy that suits your business
Hashtags can still form part of a strong social media strategy for small businesses, but they shouldn’t be treated as a shortcut to thousands of views.
Focus on relevance rather than volume.
Research the terminology used within your niche, experiment with broad and specific hashtags, incorporate local hashtags where appropriate and consider creating a branded hashtag for your business.
Most importantly, combine hashtags with useful, engaging content and clear keywords that tell people exactly what your business does.
Social media algorithms will continue to change. Building content around what your audience actually wants to see gives your small business a much stronger foundation than chasing the latest hashtag trick.
