To #Hashtag or Not to Hashtag

One of the greatest questions of our time that plagues people of all ages is: “How the heck do I use hashtags?” 

Okay, so while it may not be one of the weightiest quandaries of the contemporary world, it is still an important question that boggles a lot of minds. On social media, hashtags can be instrumental in helping people find your content and helping you find others' content as well. After you hashtag a word, it enters the vast world of hashtags. This allows anyone on social media to see your content if they search for that word which gives your post the opportunity of being seen by hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. So should you be using them? Absolutely.


Think of hashtags as a built-in search engine for you to find posts that interest you. Wondering what’s been going on in Montclair, NJ? Try searching #montclairnj on Instagram or Twitter - and users that post content relevant to Montclair may come up. Wondering where you can find a designer to do a logo for you? Try searching #logodesign. You can and should do this in your own posts as well.

Try to use a mix of both broad hashtags (i.e. #tiptuesday or #tbt for “Throwback Thursday”), local hashtags (i.e. #montclairnj #essexcounty), and hashtags that are specific to your brand that you dream up (ours is #growwithredroot). This will maximize your audience so you will attract a wider range of people and brand your biz with your list of hashtags.

When hashtagging, just make sure to use them in moderation in the body of your post or at the end of your post. For example, a tweet or caption that reads, “#Checkout our #new #newsletter on #whetherornot to #hashtag on #socialmedia” might be startling to your followers. We like to occasionally scatter a hashtag within our content and list any additional hashtags at the end. Use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram, as many as you can fit on Twitter and 2-4 on Facebook.

Questions? Call us today at 973 650 0960 or email us at redroot@maarek.com! We would love to hear from you 😀

How to Re-Post Content on Instagram

As a small business owner, you know that staying active on social media platforms like Instagram is important. However, we know it can become time consuming to create good content every day that represents your business in a positive way. This is where it can be beneficial to re-post (or re-gram) others' content-- but how do you do it? Posting other people's content can feel uncomfortable because it feels like plagiarism. It's not! And there's a way to do it correctly! Here's how: 

Scroll through Instagram and look for anything that is relevant to your brand, your message, your aesthetic. When you find something relevant, it's important to follow proper etiquette when re-posting to avoid "stealing" the content or stepping on anyone's toes. You can use an application (we like Repost It! for Instagram or Repost for Instagram) which automatically watermarks the photo with the original user's tag or you can screenshot the content and tag the account and give photo creds if possible in your caption. (Note: normally, this is all you need to do but in the event that the user reaches out to you and says that they are uncomfortable with you using their photos despite your attribution, delete the photo and search for something else to post.) Check out Red Root's Instagram account to see how we repost local businesses' content!

An important benefit of reposting content is that it puts you and your brand on someone else's radar. When you repost and tag the other account, they receive a notification and more times than not, other users will write a comment to thank you for sharing their post. This creates an interaction and increased engagement on the post and on your account, laying a foundation for a new relationship.

Re-posting content helps you to stay relevant on social media, offsets the time it takes to create all of your own graphics and also fosters and maintains good relations with other users. While it is important to create your own content frequently, re-posting should be a welcomed practice on your social media.

Questions? Call us today at 973 650 0960 or email us at redroot@maarek.com!

Show Some Love This Season 💌💌💌

Valentine's Day is coming up and you may be asking yourself, how can I show my social media community some love (and maybe even receive some in return)? Today, we would like to talk about engagement. Do you feel like you have been diligent in posting on your social media to let people know what's been going on with your small business, but are unhappy with the amount of responses in terms of likes and comments, as well as gaining followers?

This may be because of a lack of engagement, a buzzword in the social media marketing field. Think of it like this: if you're having a garage sale and you put your valuable belongings out on the front yard, you may have some people who organically stumble across the sale and stop to look around. However, unless you reach out to the community in some capacity, it's likely you won't receive much traffic to your sale. Simply posting all of your best content to the vast sphere of social media won't draw in large audiences. What can you do?

Show some love to your social media community. This is a two-way relationship! Go on to your various accounts for a bit every day and engage with your followers and those who follow you by liking, commenting, re-posting and interacting with them. The best way to receive love is to give it yourself by frequently engaging with your social media community to foster a larger broad base of followers and brand loyalty. Now go out there and show some Valentine's Day love!

Check out these accounts who do an awesome job of engaging with their community on Facebook and Instagram!

#growwithredroot