Are you a freelance writer new to Twitter and unsure how and when to use hashtags, or which ones to use?
Then you’re in the right place! But first…
Why Should Freelance Writers Be on Twitter?
There are three good reasons: you can keep up on industry trends, learn about job leads, and, most significantly, make connections with clients that can hire you. (See Carol Tice’s excellent article for more details.)
Of course, Twitter can also be a huge waste of your time. Don’t be hanging out here when you should be writing, or instead of doing other forms of marketing, such as directly contacting potential clients to pitch your services.
Why Use Hashtags?
Hashtags are very useful as a way to let other people know what your tweet is about. Of greatest importance, people interested in the topic of a particular hashtag can use it in a Twitter search and then see all the tweets that use it, or phrases like it. This can get you both new followers and potential readers of the link in your tweet (especially important if you’re referencing a post on your own website).
Best Practices
Social media “experts” experienced and new debate this, but according to Twitter you shouldn’t use more than two hashtags in a tweet; I usually use only one or two. Sometimes I use three if they happen to be natural words in the tweet.
I also vary the ones I use so I can attract more people. Keep in mind that some are more popular than others; put the your most likely ones in the Twitter search bar, click to search, and then click “all.” This will allow you to determine how many times a given hashtag is used in an hour or a day, and also see who’s tweeting about the same subject. Hashtags.org is another alternative for good data on use frequency.
Freelance Writing Hashtags
#freelance
#freelancer
#freelancers
#freelancewriter
#freelancewriting
#writing
#writer
#writers
#writingtip
#writingtips
#amwriting
#wordcount
#writerslife
#forwriters
#WriteMotivation
#writersblock
#wordcount
#writeforaliving
#writingcareer
#WriterWednesday (also #WW)
Freelance Writing Niche Hashtags
(Note: See my course Find Your Freelance Writing Niches if you haven’t yet found lucrative specialties.)
#copywriter
#copywriting
#travelwriter
#travelwriting
#webwriter
#contentwriting
#contentwriter
#blogger
#featurewriting
#ghostwriter
#ghostwriting
#grantwriting
#businesswriting
#technicalwriting
#technicalwriter
#resumewriting
#speechwriting
#speechwriter
Choose Your Best Freelance Writing Niches…
With my short and powerful self-guided course that explains:
— 7 aspects of your life that can lead to lucrative freelance writing niches
— How to research a potential freelance writing niche for viability
— 9 ways to increase your expertise
— And much more
Hashtags for Nonfiction Authors
#nonfiction
#author
#authors
#copyright
#punctuation
#selfpub
#books
#ebook
#publish
#publishing
#pubtip
#edit
#editing
#editor
#amediting
#wip
#workinprogress
#marketing
#publishing
#smallbiz
#business
#entrepreneurs
#selfemployed
Help Us Out…
Did I miss any good ones? Do you use hashtags much? And follow me on Twitter!
Choose Your Best Freelance Writing Niches…
With my short and powerful self-guided course that explains:
— 7 aspects of your life that can lead to lucrative freelance writing niches
— How to research a potential freelance writing niche for viability
— 9 ways to increase your expertise
— And much more
Why only two, John, do you know?
Anne, my guess is that it appears too much like your just fishing for looks for you tweet (and likely the link featured in it), rather than focusing on the quality of the message.
The link above to the Twitter page discussing hashtag use provides more detail.
Seems fairly arbitrary to me unless they’re developing sentence parsing like google is… thanks.
Anne, I tend to tune out tweets that have a lot of hashtags. It feels a bit like shouting to me.
That said, I do occasionally use three hashtags, and I see a lot of people that use four to five.
I’m not sure of the “official” reasons, but another consideration for me is that you only have 140 characters. The more you use in hashtags, the fewer you have to actually say something…
Good point Graham. On a related note, there are times when I find the 140 character limit to be, well, quite limiting.
And I say this as a long-time haiku writer.
Ha! I would think most writers feel the same way — I know I do. Someone should launch a Twitter+… (Though I imagine 280 characters would also seem too limiting soon enough…)
~Graham
This is great to have this in one spot! Thanks, John!
You’re welcome Halona!
They’d been sitting in a Word doc for a long time.
I don’t always use hashtags but when I do 2 is usually it. I don’t like reading tweets with a bunch of hashtags plus a link to the point of clutter that I can’t find the link in there to click.
My hashtags would be different depending on what article or book I’m tweeting about. Usually a travel destination. My books are fiction so my hashtags are a lot different than yours. I think #romance and #kindle are hot hashtags for searches.
I agree about overdoing hashtags Cheryl. When I can, I work them into the tweet itself.
There are a bunch of hashtags specific to fiction, including many by genre type.
Great list, John. I’m not sure why it is, but I tend to use hashtags (and pay more attention to them) for my health care niche than my business writing. And, I would agree that more than 2 seems to overdo it a bit, although I am certainly no expert.
Thanks for sharing this, John.
I hope it helps Cathy. Maybe now you’ll make more use of hashtags for your business writing.
I agree with you, John. Two is enough. When I see someone with four or more hashtags, it’s just a mess to read. And I wonder about the person’s motivation for talking to me. Plus I think Graham is on to something, too. The space is limited — why not use it to connect with someone?
Hi John,
I’ve been using twitter for only a short time, but I’ve learned a lot. I didn’t know at first that there are certian hashtags that are set-up for group discussions, and using one of those is like spamming the group with an irrelevant message. It’s great to have a list of safe tags to use, plus ones that are good for different types of post.
Peter, you’re right. There are specific tags that are used for chatting in real time. I’ve participated in a couple of those; they felt a bit chaotic.
How about #contentmarketing? or maybe #guestblogging?
Hashtags are just great. I use Tweet Deck to filter hashtags/words to find questions to answer, use it to find and network with bloggers (who in the future would means customers :D).
I also participate in Twitter chats; a great way to find and network with like minded folks.
Thanks for sharing this list, John. I am off to update my Tweet Deck đŸ˜€
Jeevan, I use Hootsuite, which also has the ability search Twitter for specific hashtags and key terms.
I understand how Hashtags should work in theory, but i’ve tested it a couple of times and didn’t work,
say if a million people uses the same Hashtags who says which tweets shows first or don’t show ??
there must something missing here.
any ideas ?
Many thanks and Best wishes!
Great post. I think when social post use more than 2 or 3 hashtags in their posts, they appear to come across as, too spammy. It doesn’t feel natural and seems a little in-your-face desperate. Good advice for anyone getting into promoting themselves or their site within the realm of social media. Thanks!
I really don’t care for the whole hashtag thing, but i guess I have to start utilizing them to stay relevant. Thanks for this post!
I followed the link to Carol Tice’s article, great resource for marketing freelance services on Twitter. I try and not use more than 1 or 2 hash tags max, any more than that appears spammy and can also be filtered within Twitter.
Thanks for sharing the Trackmaven study over on Media Bistro Matt.
As with any study, we need to know how it was done and if the sample used is truly representative of the Twitter universe as a whole. It’s interesting that highest retweet rate is with 11 hashtags.
There are times I use 3 hashtags when they comfortably fit into the flow of what I’m saying.
I’ve just come over to this post from your productivity hashtags post – really useful as I’ve only just joined Twitter and just finding my way around – thank you!
Glad this post helped Emily!