Music Business Monday: Re-hashing Hashtags

Hashtags are awesome.  If you don’t think so you probably aren’t using them right.  I’ve covered it a couple times in passing but hashtags are the little # before a word, used mostly in Social Networking.  But can now be found through google searches.  You can see hashtags everywhere from TV shows to churches, and I kid you not a funeral home.

Without getting too detailed hashtags are necessary for locating relevant topics via the internet.  Hashtags can be used a lot of ways, but for the musician, business owner and industry types they can help you gain exposure when used correctly.  If you haven’t yet, go to twitter or instagram and click on one.  What happens?

Magic, that’s what happens.

By clicking on a hashtag you will see every tweet, picture or status with that hashtag attached.  So what does this mean to you, with the tiny budget for advertising?  This is an opportunity for you to grab the attention of potential fans, clients and colleagues.  By using a relevant hashtags in your posts, you can put your tweets in front of millions of people.

Last year twitter started the integration of the #music hashtag.  Not very original, but what it does is awesome. As twitter explains it, It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

Another cool hashtag is #MusicMonday, I wrote a post about that a month ago, but you can read it here.

#NewMusic is a way for you to get in front of fans as well.  By affixing this to your tweet, people that are searching for new music can stumble across your post.  When using this, you should tag a couple examples or influences too.  This way there’s no research involved.  If you sound like @imaginedragons, put it in there that way new fans will know what to expect.  There’s always the chance that the artists themselves may hear it and share it since you tagged them in it.

Hashtags are fun.  You can find just about anything you want!

Have any hashtags to share?  Let us know so we can use them too!