Special occasions that are recognised and celebrated around the world such as Christmas and the New Year provide businesses with a great opportunity to re-engage with customers and reach new audiences online.

Including holiday hashtags (hashtags that are primarily associated with a certain holiday e.g. Christmas, Easter etc.) in your online content is one such strategy businesses can use to attract more people to their online brand. But only if the hashtags are used properly – hashtags that are used incorrectly and do little to promote a business brand can damage a business’s reputation.

Before incorporating holiday hashtags in online marketing content, businesses first need to consider whether the hashtag is relevant to the content being shared and if it is the right hashtag to use.

Simply utilising a specific holiday hashtag and publishing it with irrelevant content just so the content has a higher chance of being found can actually cause more people to unfollow a business.

Once a business has established that a hashtag is relevant to the content it wishes to share, it should ensure that the hashtag in question is the correct one to use. Some holiday hashtags can have a number of variations just from people accidentally publishing the incorrect hashtag, or wanting to create their own. Make sure your business finds the correct hashtag to use before publishing.