Part of the Google Plus update that we experienced a few weeks ago was an addition of auto hashtagging. This feature picks up keywords from your update and adds a label on the top right hand corner of your post, which helps your content’s exposure.
Google has also released a very useful help centre page that explains exactly how to use auto hashtags and also standard hashtags on the Google Plus network.
It is hard to identify how Google decides what hashtags are relevant. After some testing, I have found keyword density plays an important role however there are some cases which make this theory obsolete- if anything, it looks like this feature is randomised, this being said, it would be unsafe to rely on this new feature.
This feature is very helpful to those who are new to social media. A lot of people barely understand what a hashtag is, let alone use it. However, with this feature, it gives people a fighting chance and an opportunity to put their content in front of a larger audience. This couldn’t come at a greater time as it is becoming apparent that social media is important to boost your SEO rankings, so with this new capability there is the chance to perform better in the search engines.
As I said earlier, posts aren’t tagged 100% of the time. We could begin to see some inexperienced users depending on this and missing out on a lot of exposure. It’s important to remember and continue to use relevant hashtags within your content.
All in all, I can see that this is one way that Google is proving itself to be a better network than Facebook. It will be interesting to see whether or not this will help increase a pages’ following or if it will make no difference.
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