Picture-perfect social media strategies: 5 DMOs with hot hashtags

Let’s #BeReal … When was the last time you scrolled through posts about your destination? There are plenty of posts out there — and hashtags make it easy to find them all in one place. 

Do yourself a favor before reading any further: go to any social media platform and do a hashtag search for your destination. Chances are, you'll see visitors’ vacation pics, your attractions being enjoyed by travelers and locals, and maybe even your local partners marketing their own goodies to potential customers. You can see what people are excited and talking about, and (maybe more importantly for your marketing efforts) what they are not — all thanks to hashtags. 

To quote Hootsuite, using hashtags “can lead to greater engagement, boosting your brand’s social media engagement through likes, shares, comments, and new followers.” Popular hashtags can help users find and engage with your organization online — and give you some precious user-generated content to boot. 

You might be thinking, “Um … 2013 called, it wants this outdated article back,” but think of this as a refresher course as social media best practices are constantly shifting to meet the wants and needs of online users. If you want a real throwback, think about posts from 10 years ago where the trending practice was to use as many hashtags as you could possibly think of. We’re talking full paragraphs, people! Thankfully, we are no longer expected to exhaust all creative efforts — instead, we can follow these guidelines for the optimal number of hashtags to use per post on popular channels:

• Facebook: 2-3
• Instagram: 3-5
• LinkedIn: 1-5
• TikTok: 3-5
• Twitter: 1-2
• YouTube: 3-5

Now that you’re #refreshed, do you need some inspiration to amp up your own hashtag game? Here are five destination marketing organizations (DMOs) worldwide that actively use and promote niche hashtags relevant to their brand. Spoiler alert: travelers and locals love them just as much as we do.
 

#ExploreVictoria

#yeahTHATgreenville

#VancouverWA

#VisitSacramento

#mexicocityofficial