Did you ever see the hashtag video with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake? (If you haven’t seen it, watch it here.) In the video from the Late Night Show, the guys were hilariously poking fun at the over-use of hashtags, but I’m here to tell you that hashtags are actually a very useful tool in your social media toolbox.

In today's post, I’ll go over what hashtags are exactly, and how to go about using them on social media.

A hashtag is simply the pound sign (#) followed by a keyword or phrase, no spaces. Like #greensmoothies or #farmersmarkets. They are used as a way to label or organize your posts into categories of interest to make them easier for people to find on each platform. 

Staying with the food theme, let's say I wanted to make a smoothie. I might hop over to Pinterest or Instagram to search #smoothierecipes. This would return to me a never-ending result of all the posts tagged with #smoothierecipes. If you're a blogger who blogs about smoothies -...