About HashTagsForLikes

HashTagsForLikes “helps [users] understand what’s working well for them and maybe what’s not working so well and basically provides something that allows you to develop and grow their social media beyond just hashtags. Over the last few years, we’ve developed that into having more insights into your profile and developing other tools around Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.”

One of the things that prompted this development in HashTagsForLikes was seeing how many people were able to expand their business during the pandemic, despite quarantine restrictions and, often, having to change their service or product to adapt to the time. 

About Max Thompson

The founder of HashTagsForLikes, Max Thompson, was born in England and raised in the south of England. He attended university in Southampton, where he started his first web design and marketing business. 

He shares, “I ran a web design company doing creative design, responsive websites for about five years and then moved into consultancy for marketing because I found I enjoyed more of the working with the business owners on the nitty gritty kind of core to their business and how to use technology and marketing to grow what they’re doing.”

After this, he did consultancy for businesses before setting up an events company. In late 2017, he moved to Thailand to travel and get a different perspective on life. He realized that he could still work remotely with his computer and travel back to England every so often. 

In 2018, Max took HashTagsForLikes from a free resource, which had been receiving millions of hits on Google, to a newly evolved tool with greater depth of information for people looking to grow online using hashtags. 

Are Hashtags Still Important?

Max shares that hashtags are still incredibly important for individuals looking to grow and get their content out there in as many ways as possible.

“A good way to do that is to use the new features and the kind of existing features of the social media platforms and understand how they work, understand your audience.”

He explains that if you understand who your audience is, you can get that extra reach for your post by using the right hashtags, which essentially categorize your content so the right people can find it. 

“You basically add yourself to little micro-communities or bigger communities when [hashtags are] used properly. So, if you use the right size hashtags for your niche, don’t go too big if you’ve just started, for example, because you’re going to get lost in the noise… [For example,] if you’re posting about cat food, don’t use hashtags about animals in general or you know the wrong things like dog food, it’s going to confuse the social media platforms to what you’re trying to say.”

Max shares that the best way to use hashtags effectively is to : 

• Think about each post as an opportunity to explore a new hashtag and use some hashtags that you know already work well
• Use hashtags that are highly relevant to your post
• Don’t use hugely popular hashtags because you’re more likely to get lost in the competition, especially if you are a smaller account.

With HashTagsForLikes, users can also monitor how many views each hashtag gave them, allowing users to narrow down a list of hashtags that are most successful for you and your content. 

How Are Hashtags Different Between Social Media Platforms?

Max shares, “Each platform uses hashtags slightly differently because they’ll have a different algorithm or they’ll put more weight on a hashtag.”

For example, he explains that if you click on a hashtag on Facebook, the platform will show you several posts that Facebook picks. In contrast, Instagram will show you an entire feed dedicated to that hashtag. 

Max notes that cute animals and cat hashtags are always some of the most popular hashtags. However, he recommends that creators pay close attention to trends in their niche. 

“You’ll have trending stories. You’ll have things that become popular over time, then drop, so it’s really good to follow those trends. You can also use it for content ideas, so if things are trending, a bit like using Google trends. It can allow you to use hashtags to see what type of content people are posting.”

How Can You Tell If A Hashtag is Working For You?

Max advises creators to look at other well-performing content, especially the top posts in hashtag categories you’re interested in doing well in. 

“[On HashTagsForLikes], you can click into that hashtag and see what’s on your Explorer, which one’s the top post, and then you can see why is that content doing better than others. Is it because the profile is a really famous person and everyone loves them anyways, or is it a combination of that the fact that the content’s really engaging, it’s bright, it’s really relevant [etc.]” 

This tool within HashTagsForLikes can give you fresh ideas for content to help you boost your content within that hashtag or similar hashtags. Max has seen many HashTagsForLikes users have massive success using their featured tools. 

“Depending on the niche, we’ve seen people grow exponentially [using HashTagsForLikes] because they’ve never used them before, and they’ve just got a niche that’s really popular, and they were just using things that were too popular for the size of their account.”

He adds, “We get a lot of people using us because they want the tool forever that they can use, and we offer, we don’t overcomplicate it, so continually build up their hashtags. They can continually save their hashtag sets so that they can use them over and over again…and you’ve got all that data there to use.”

Future Plans

Max is currently working on developing more community and help-based tools to aid HashTagsForLikes users in growing their social media. Some of these tools will include features to help people monetize their social media and tools for brands to find creators who can help them grow. 

“There are other areas where we can help people who are just getting started to understand what’s needed to get into a certain space or expand what they’ve doing. I’d like to build a community around what we’re doing and connect people together more.”

Max is also excited about the huge increase in traveling, people being able to work on the go, and sharing all of this on social media. The rise in travel apps and social media content focused on travel is another exciting aspect he is looking forward to seeing develop. 

In closing, he shares, “I think that’s a great thing to see at the moment, and I’m glad that we can help more people expand their content.”