Make your hashtags better

If you run your own business and use social media with any consistency (or even without consistency – no judgments), then I hope that by now you are familiar with how much hashtags can do to help people find you.

What makes a hashtag more readable?

I am a Gen Xer, meaning that my eyesight is getting a little less so every year. Some features of my phone that I hadn’t used before are suddenly becoming a necessity like increasing the text across multiple apps.

Also, because I grew up on the internet pre-social media, it feels sometimes like I never got used to reading hashtags. The words all ran together, it looked awkward and I’d have to sound things out, or stare at them long enough for the words to become clear.

It turns out, it wasn’t just me. Did you know that there is a better way to write hashtags? And it’s one that helps, well, pretty much everyone.

Pascal Case, Camel Case, and Snake Case

These three terms refer to ways of capitalizing the words, or not capitalizing them as the case may be (pun fully intended).

Snake case is when all of the words use lowercase letters with an underscore in between the words. Like #snakes_are_cool instead of #snakesarecool.

Camel case is when you keep the first word starting with a lowercase letter, but you capitalize the ones that come after – #snakesAreCool.

Pascal Case is when you capitalize each word – #SnakesAreCool.

Which case should you use for a hashtag?

Snake Case

Snake case might not work that well in hashtag land, especially if you are trying to ride the wave of someone else’s hashtag. It does make it easy to read by adding a space in between each word, but if your goal is to get found via hashtag or engage in a topic on social media, then altering the hashtag with an underscore might not lead people to you.

Camel Case and Pascal Case

Here’s the good news – if you capitalize the letters of words in a hashtag, then you can use the exact same hashtags that other people are using and it works the same! So you can make it more readable and be able to engage in certain topics online without compromising the ability to be found.

Both of these cases make the hashtags easier to read and hear, so I say go with either one.

Why does it matter if your hashtags are readable?

Lots of reasons!

• Hashtags with capitalized words are read more legibly by screen readers and it can assist people with low or no vision.

• They are generally more legible to sighted readers, especially on a small screen like a smartphone.

• They prevent embarrassing yet hilarious goofs from happening with your hashtags. Think #SuperBowl vs #SuperbOwl or, if you have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old like I do, think about how a slight case change shifts the hashtag #AcademyOfArt to #AcademyoFart. Just sayin’.

I want to know what questions you have about hashtags – drop them in the comments below!

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