Twitter is one of the hottest social media marketing sites out there today, and when it comes to plain old social media strategy, well, there’s quite a bit that you can work through and use to expand your business and profile online. In fact, there are a few simple ways that you can use Twitter – and specifically, hashtags – to promote yourself and your business and brand in time online.

Here are just a few of the things and ideas that you can take away as solid social media strategy components when it comes to using Twitter hashtags properly:

First, what are hashtags?

Great question! Hashtags are those words on Twitter that are preceded by the pound (“#”) sign in every tweet. You can click on hashtags and search organically for things without having to type in or find manually any sort of information, and hashtags can quite often be a simple and straightforward way to categorize and use information.

Ideal for breaking news and other serious and speedy events, hashtags are also effectively used by communities looking to get the most out of their business brands, as they can help promote major issues and more when it comes to having users find information rapidly, and follow information easily.

Create your own and pump it out!

You can create your own hashtag that reflects your business, whether it’s about a specific product name, or something else. These hashtags can allow people to discuss your brand, your business, your products, or anything else on Twitter while providing a forum for people to see and understand how important and how effective your brand and products are.

Because hashtags are publicly searchable, too, it’s easy to promote yourself with them, as well as track others who use the hashtag to follow up on their experiences with your brand. Hashtags are an ideal way in this manner to start conversations with followers of your brand, and for that reason need to be an ideal and significant part of your social media marketing strategy across the board.

Jump on other hashtags and make it relevant

Instead of just creating your own hashtags, though, it is possible for you to jump on others’ hashtags, too. You need to be careful about this – if you use other more popular hashtags as part of your social media strategy, it’s important to see to it that they are relevant topics and in good taste for your brand – but piggybacking on another hashtag can allow you some popularity without having to slowly and methodically build a brand on your own over a much longer period of time.

Hashtags are one of the things that separates Twitter from a variety of other social media sites, including Facebook – and for that reason, is one of the reasons why Twitter is so effective when it comes to being used professional and in a worthwhile manner. Check out hashtags the next time you are on Twitter, and make them a part of your own social media strategy!