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A lot of words have been added to the dictionary over the past few decades thanks to social media, but few have become so widely used and accepted as “hashtag.”

For a long time, the hashtag symbol (#) was known simply as the “pound” symbol. Now, I could swear that the only time I hear it referred to as a pound symbol is when I enter my PIN number to pay my cell phone bill.

While hashtags were originally made famous by Twitter, they’re now used on many major social networks, including Facebook and Instagram. Let’s explore what a hashtag is, why they’re so great, and how they work on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

What Does ‘Hashtag’ Mean?

A hashtag is simply a keyword phrase, spelled out without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of it. For example, #InboundChat and #ChocolateLovers are both hashtags.

You can put these hashtags anywhere in your social media posts: in the beginning, at the end, or anywhere in between. (Read this blog post for more instructions on using hashtags.)

These hashtags tie public conversations from all different users into a single stream, which you can find by searching for a hashtag, clicking on one, or using a third-party monitoring tool like HubSpot’s Social Inbox. Note that, in order for a post with a hashtag to appear in anyone’s search, the post must be public.

What Makes Hashtags So Great?

Back in 2007 when hashtags were a brand new concept, Google’s Chris Messina realized the value of hashtags right away. He wrote that the “channel” concept of hashtags satisfies many of the things group discussions do, but without inheriting the “unnecessary management cruft” that most group systems suffer from.

In addition, Messina wrote that they’re easily accessible with the syntax on Twitter (and now on other social media networks), easy to learn, flexible, and works with current user behavior instead of forcing anyone to learn anything radically new. It also works consistently on cell phones — whereas, for example, the star key doesn’t.

Almost a decade later, the hashtag continues to thrive. When used properly, hashtags are a great way for individuals and brands to make their social posts more visible and increase engagement. They can give people useful context and cues for recall, aggregate posts and images together, and update a group of like-minded individuals on certain a topic in real time.

Hashtags are often used to unite conversations around things like …

• Events or conferences, like #INBOUND16 or #SB50
• Disasters or emergencies, like #JeSuisCharlie or #PrayForHaiti)
• Holidays or celebrations, like #WorldNutellaDay or #OneHaleOfAWedding
• General interest topics, like #WinterWonderland or #ChocolateLovers
• Popular hashtags, like #tbt or #MotivationMonday

The key is to use hashtags sparingly and only when they add value. Use them too much, and they can be confusing, frustrating, and just plain annoying. 

How Hashtags Work On Twitter, Facebook & Instagram

Click on a social network below to jump to that section:

1. How Hashtags Work on Twitter
2. How Hashtags Work on Facebook
3. How Hashtags Work on Instagram

1) How Hashtags Work on Twitter

A Twitter hashtag ties the conversations of different users into one stream. If Twitter users who aren’t otherwise connected to one another talk about the same topic using a specific hashtag, their tweets will appear in the same stream.

Here’s what a hashtag stream on Twitter looks like — we’ll use #WorldNutellaDay as an example:

Most of the good stuff takes place in the center of this page. For the hashtag #WorldNutellaDay, you’ll see there are a few ways to toggle the hashtag stream: Top (the default), Live, News, Photos, Videos, and More Options.

• Top: A stream of tweets using that hashtag that have seen the most engagement — which usually means tweets from influential people or brands that have a lot of followers. (Download our guide on how to get 1,000+ Twitter followers here.)
• Live: A live stream of tweets from everyone tweeting out that hashtag.
• News: A live stream of tweets from publishers and other designated news sources.
• Photos: A collage of photos included in tweets that use the hashtag. When you hover your mouse over a photo, you can reply, retweet, or Like the tweet with just one click. You can open the tweet by clicking on the photo.

• Videos: A stream of tweets using the hashtag that have videos in them.
• More Options: A dropdown menu that has a few great options to pick from, including “From people you follow” and “Near you.” You can also save your search here by clicking “Save this search.” To access it later, simply click into the search box on the top right of your Twitter home screen and it’ll appear as a saved search.

On the left-hand side of the screen on the #WorldNutellaDay stream, you’ll find “Related searches.” This is especially useful if you’re looking for unofficial hashtags for your own events and campaigns and others’.

Finally, on the right-hand side, you’ll find “Related articles.” Here’s where Twitter pulls in the most recent, popular articles on the topic from its partner publishers. You can view more articles about the topic by clicking “View all.”

How to Use Hashtags on Twitter

Want to get involved in the conversation, or even start your own? Using a hashtag on Twitter is as simple as publishing a tweet from a public account that includes the hashtag, like this:

According to our lawyers, we can only wish you “Happy Generic Hazelnut Spread Day.” #WorldNutellaDay

— Comedy Central (@ComedyCentral)
February 5, 2016

Or this:

[New Calendar] Get your #SocialMedia planned with this calendar from @HubSpot and @Buffer. https://t.co/UyrudFlqwy http://pic.twitter.com/5pqKgBKJUT

— HubSpot (@HubSpot)
February 5, 2016

As long as your account is public, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your tweet.

How to Find Hashtags on Twitter

There are a few ways to find hashtags on Twitter. If you already know the hashtag you want to search for, there are four main ways to search for it: a simple search, an advanced search, monitoring using a third-party tool, or typing it directly into the URL.

You can do a simple search using the search box in the top right-hand corner of your screen:

If you’re searching for a hashtag but want to include more details in your search, try Twitter’s Advanced Search. Here, you can search for tweets with specific words and phrases, written in a certain language, from certain accounts, near certain locations, published on certain dates, and even containing smiley 🙂 or frowny 🙁 faces.

For example, if I wanted to search for the sad #WorldNutellaDay tweets, I might search for the WorldNutellaDay hashtag with a frowny face, like so:

The results show up in a stream with different toggle options, just like our original hashtag search. (These people need to go get some Nutella!)

You can also use a third-party monitoring tool like HubSpot’s Social Inbox to monitor certain hashtags. These tools will put certain hashtags in a stream beside any other streams you’ve set up in the tool already.

(HubSpot customers: To set up a stream in Social Inbox, click Social > Monitoring > “+” and enter the name of the hashtag you’d like to monitor. Click here for detailed instructions on how to create monitoring streams.)

Finally, you can search for a hashtag by typing it directly into a URL like so: twitter.com/InsertHashtagHere. So #WorldNutellaDay can be found at twitter.com/#WorldNutellaDay.

If you’re searching for popular hashtags from scratch, the best place to look is the trending topics bar on the left-hand side of your homescreen. Popular hashtagged words often become trending topics — which are topics so many people are talking about that they are a “trend.” Oh look, #WorldNutellaDay is on there!

By default, Twitter tailors these trending topics to you based on your location and whom you follow. If you want to change the location Twitter uses to tailor your trends, you can do so by clicking “Change” to the right of “Trends.” In the window that appears, click “Change” again, and then enter in the location information you’d like Twitter to use instead.

Twitter’s native “trending topics” is limited to only a few hashtags, so if you want to find more outside of trending topics and you don’t know what to search for, consider using Advanced Search to browse tweets, or a third-party application like Trendsmap.

Twitter Chat Hashtags

Along with hashtags for events, campaigns, and promotions, there are these unique things on Twitter called Twitter Chats. Twitter Chats are live Q&A sessions organized around a hashtag — either on the fly, or at a pre-arranged time.

I like how Buffer explains them: “Imagine a business networking event — but without a dress code and with a keyboard instead of a bar. The same social customs apply — courtesy and respect — and it’s a great way to meet new people with similar interests.”

There are Twitter Chats about pretty much everything, from marketing to personal finance to affinities for cats.

If you’re looking for Twitter chats to engage in, check out TweetReports’ Twitter Chat Schedule, which you can toggle by date, hashtag, and topics like writing, social media, and so on. You can also submit your own Twitter chats to be considered. 

2) How Hashtags Work on Facebook

Like on Twitter, a Facebook hashtag ties the conversations of different users into one stream. But unlike Twitter and Instagram, where many people have public accounts and their posts can be seen by anyone, most people’s Facebook posts and accounts are private. This means that even if individuals are using hashtags, they aren’t searchable. The result? The hashtags you can search for on Facebook tend to be published by influencers, brands, and publishers, rather than by individuals. 

Here’s what a hashtag stream on Facebook looks like, using #WorldNutellaDay as an example:

Most of the good stuff takes place in the center of this page. For the hashtag #WorldNutellaDay, you’ll see there are a whole bunch of ways to toggle the hashtag stream — even more than we have on Twitter: Top (the default), Latest, Photos, Videos, Pages, People, Places, Groups, Apps, and Events.

• Top: A stream of Facebook posts using that hashtag that have seen the most engagement — which usually means tweets from influential people or brands that have a lot of followers. In this case, a video from the brand Nutella itself garnered the most engagement and got a top seat.
• Latest: A stream of public Facebook posts using the hashtag, usually by influencers, brands, or publishers — like a food blogger posting a tutorial on how to make a Nutella hazelnut cake for #WorldNutellaDay.
• Photos: A stream of public Facebook posts using the hashtag that have photos in them.
• Videos: A stream of public Facebook posts using the hashtag that have videos in them.

• Pages: Pages on Facebook that are officially associated with the hashtag.
• People: People on Facebook with a name officially associated with the hashtag. For a hashtag like #WorldNutellaDay, there are no results here.
• Places: Places in the world with a name officially associated with the hashtag. For a hashtag like #WorldNutellaDay, there are no results here.
• Groups: Groups with a name officially associated with the hashtag.
• Apps: Facebook apps with a name officially associated with the hashtag.
• Events: Faceook events with a name officially associated with the hashtag.

How to Use Hashtags on Facebook

To use a hashtag on Facebook, all you have to do is publish a Facebook post to your Page or timeline that includes the hashtag.

Be sure your post is public if you want people other than your Facebook friends to be able to find it. To make a Facebook post public, click on the button to the right of “Post” and choose “Public” from the dropdown menu.

Once you publish the post to your Page or timeline, the hashtag becomes a clickable link, which takes folks to the hashtag page. Here’s what a Facebook post with a hashtag looks like:

How to Find Hashtags on Facebook

If you already know the hashtag you want to search for, there are two main ways to search for it: a simple search or by typing it directly into the URL.

You can do a simple search using the search box in the top left-hand corner of your screen:

You can also search for a hashtag by typing it directly into a URL like so: http://ift.tt/1v4E0kWInsertHashtagHere. So #WorldNutellaDay can be found at http://ift.tt/1RhLC23WorldNutellaDay.

If you’re searching for popular hashtags from scratch, the best place to look is the trending topics bar on the left-hand side of your homescreen. (Note: This is currently only available in English in select countries.) The articles and hashtags Facebook shows you are based on a number of different factors, including engagement, timeliness, pages you’ve Liked, and your location.

While most trending topics on Twitter are hashtags, this is much less the case on Facebook. You’ll see only one trending topic below is actually a hashtag (#DemDebate):

3) How Hashtags Work on Instagram

An Instagram hashtag ties the conversations of different users into one stream, just like on Twitter and Facebook. If Instagram users who aren’t otherwise connected to one another talk about the same topic using a specific hashtag, their tweets will appear in the same stream.

Here’s what a hashtag stream on Instagram looks like — again, using #WorldNutellaDay as an example:

Notice the user interface on Instagram’s hashtag stream is much simpler than those on Twitter and Facebook. There are three things you can do from this page: Scroll through related hashtags, look at the Top Posts, and browse Recent Posts.

• Related Hashtags: All related hashtags (like #nutellalover, #nutellaaddict, #nutellabread, etc. in this case), which users can scroll through sideways.
• Top Posts: The nine posts using that hashtag that have seen the most engagement — which usually means tweets from influential people or brands that have a lot of followers. This is limited to nine posts.
• Recent Posts: A live stream of Instagram posts from everyone posting that hashtag.

How to Use Hashtags on Instagram

Want to get involved in the conversation, or even start your own? Using a hashtag on Instagram is as simple as publishing an Instagram post from a public account that includes the hashtag, like this:

Or this:

As long as your account is public, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your Instagram post.

When you write a new post and start typing in a hashtag using the # symbol, Instagram will actually suggest hashtags to you based on their popularity. Check out the suggestions I got when I typed in the incomplete hashtag, #WorldNutel:

How to Find Hashtags on Instagram

If you already know the hashtag you want to search for, the only way to search for a hashtag on Instagram on your mobile device is through a simple search. You can do a simple search by clicking the magnifying glass at the bottom of your screen, which brings you to the “Explore” tab. From there, type the hashtag name into the search box at the top of your screen, and toggle your results by “Tags”:

If you’re searching for popular hashtags from scratch, the best place to look is in Instagram’s “Explore” tab. Here, you’ll find popular hashtags as well as posts liked by people whose posts you’ve Liked, or posts that are Liked by a large number of people in the Instagram community.

To explore these hashtags, go to the “Explore” tab by clicking that magnifying glass at the bottom of your screen. Check out the “Trending” section to browse trending hashtags either by scrolling sideways or clicking “See all.”

What About Using Hashtags “in the Wild”?

Although hashtags were born and work best online, you can point people to them in real life. Try placing hashtags in relevant and well trafficked public locations — like in pictures or posters, menus, stickers, and so on — to encourage people to search for that hashtag online.

What other hashtag tips do you have for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram? Share with us in the comments.

Just like an awesome photo or graphic can really make your design stand out, so can the right font. But the wrong font can also make your design stand out … in a bad way. If you’ve ever seen a design with really out-of-date typography, you know what I mean.

But what makes a font or typography design out-of-date? What’s “in” right now? Whether you’re designing a one-off project or you’re a seasoned designer, it’s important to stay on top of typography trends so your work looks and feels current.

Check out the infographic below from ThinkDesign to learn about the typography trends in 2016, from retro and handwritten fonts to mixing and matching typefaces, to the roles transitional effects and animation could play in your marketing. (And download our free do-it-yourself design guide here for tips about how to use fonts in your content and web designs.)

On our path to embracing a new era of marketing and sales, HubSpot discovered something important. Relevant data is the heartbeat of good inbound marketing and sales. In order to make sure we stay on top of trends, information and the goals of our customers, we decided to launch HubSpot Research.

The goal is simple: we have analysts and contributors gather data and create thought leadership that ultimately helps people transform their businesses for the better. All business professionals need high quality data in order to make strategic decisions, and we want to share what we’ve gathered. Below are a few of my thoughts on why it’s so important to make our research available.

Why We’re Making Our Research Available to Everyone

1) All companies should have the resources they need to make strategic decisions.

Information is more valuable than ever. Marketing, sales, and business professionals need high-quality, data-backed findings regardless of their budget. HubSpot Research brings people quality information free of charge, ensuring that all companies have the right resources to make strategic decisions.

Traditionally, smaller companies are at a disadvantage if they are unable to pay for research reports or conduct large-scale surveys. By making our findings free for all, we’re ensuring that all professionals are on an equal playing field.

2) Actionable insights can change the way we build strategies and plan for the future. 

What makes information so valuable? Insights into market trends can inform not only how you optimize your efforts today, but also help you better plan for the next big thing. For example, our most recent research report on advertising revealed that the majority of consumers have grown accustomed to ads, but very few people have a positive opinion of them. Unsurprisingly, telemarketing calls are the least popular, but knowing that newsletters are, by and large, viewed favorably can help people invest in interesting vehicles for content.

There’s no need to make blind decisions when data on customer usage and market trends is readily available. By launching HubSpot Research, we are bringing our insights to the surface so everyone can take advantage of them.

3) Informed teams provide better experiences.

As I mentioned before, high-quality data is key to inbound marketing and sales. At its core, inbound is about creating a better experience for everyone — including the buyer. The only way to build a remarkable interaction is to have an informed, human connection with the person on the other end. For instance, our new ads report shows that most consumers will actively leave a website if they encounter a pop-up ad or auto-playing video. Knowing this reinforces what many inbound marketers instinctively know: the only way to attract picky buyers is by providing them with relevant information, not chasing them down while they browse the web.

By incorporating relevant data such as this into inbound efforts, marketers and salespeople ensure that they’re optimizing their team’s time. At the same time, they can be confident that they’re approaching buyers in the way they want to be approached, with information that they will find most useful. HubSpot Research looks to solve an old problem: instead of guessing and checking, marketers and salespeople can now use data to make informed inbound decisions the first time around.

As we continue to expand our offerings and efforts, we’re excited to bring the best insights forward for everyone to use through our new HubSpot Research platform. Data is a critical component of smart inbound marketing and sales strategies, and we can’t wait to see how these insights can help transform businesses and people for the better.

Interested? Check out our new HubSpot Research platform today.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

Have you ever seen a basketball team abruptly go ice-cold during a game? Out of nowhere, they’ve missed 13 straight shots and are down by 20 points. As the team heads down the floor for their next possession, you think to yourself, “This time they have to score. They’re due.”

In reality, the team isn’t more likely to make the next basket if they’ve missed the last 13. You’ve just succumbed to gambler’s fallacy: Thinking things in life will average out.

Our minds are naturally prone to these kinds of biases. And depending on the field you’re in, certain inclinations can play a huge role in your overall success. In sales, biases can be a rep’s worst nightmare. They can lead a rep to jump to inaccurate conclusions about a prospect or themselves, resulting in a lost deal.

Recognizing that we all have unique biases is the key to overcoming their potential negative effects. Below are 12 psychological biases we’re all susceptible to and how they affect salespeople.

12 Psychological Biases Affecting How You Sell

1) Anchoring Bias

Anchoring bias is our tendency to overemphasize the first piece of information we learn by using it as our criteria to make a decision. 

If a salesperson latches on to the first pain point a prospect mentions and believes it’s a higher priority than anything they learn afterwards, they’ve fallen victim to anchoring bias. The first pain point a prospect raises might not be the most important. While reps should always solve for the customer, solving a low-priority problem isn’t enough to close a deal.

Reps should spend time learning as much as they can about prospects through research and thorough discovery. Salespeople can’t provide prospects with valuable advice unless they have an accurate understanding of their prospect’s goals and pain points.

2) Hyperbolic Discounting

In a scenario where people are given the choice between two similar rewards, we tend to value the one that arrives sooner. For example, if you were offered $20 now or $30 in two months, you would likely prefer the $20 now.

Salespeople often take advantage of this bias through hyperbolic discounting — slashing the price to influence a decision and reach their quota faster instead of planning for the long-term and working on the prospect’s timeline. 

Although it’s tempting to offer a discount just to get a deal signed earlier, reps should prioritize the long-term benefits of the relationship. Customers who are loyal for years are much more valuable than a prospect who churns after a few months. 

3) Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is interpreting information in a way that confirms what you already believe. 

Sales reps can fall victim to this bias if they ask prospects loaded questions because they’re in search of a specific answer. For example, if a rep thinks a prospect could benefit from new onboarding software, they might ask, “Would you like to get your new employees producing better results, faster?” Of course the answer is yes, but that doesn’t confirm the prospect needs new onboarding software. 

While it’s helpful to have research-backed assumptions prior to talking to a prospect, reps need to remember to be open to new information and be ready to admit their educated guess might be incorrect. 

4) Clustering Illusion

When you notice a pattern in a completely random series of events, you’ve fallen for the clustering illusion.

This happens in sales when a rep has success with a few prospects using a specific selling strategy, so they use that technique in every sale going forward. This bias is likely how the sales script came to life: If it worked with one prospect, the thinking goes, it will work with all of them.

While a pattern of success with a few prospects is great, it shouldn’t drastically influence how you approach every prospect going forward. Having a one-size-fits-all mentality will result in more lost prospects than won deals. Keeping each outreach personal and specific allows reps to connect with prospects in a genuine way, and provide significant value. 

5) Planning Fallacy

The planning fallacy occurs when you drastically underestimate how much time you need to complete a task.

When a call goes well after a salesperson does limited work prior to picking up the phone, they can fall into the trap of thinking this is all the time they need to be successful. The planning fallacy seduces reps into doing the minimum amount of work while still expecting good results.

Providing yourself ample time for tasks is key to success. Instead of doing the minimum and believing you’ll see maximum results, you should set aside a significant amount of time for every task to ensure you’re doing the best job possible.

6) Curse of Knowledge 

The curse of knowledge is when you’re unable to relate to an uninformed person’s problems, because you have better information. 

Sales reps who know their product can benefit a prospect might fall prey to this bias by dismissing a prospect’s objections because of their expertise. Instead of listening to objections and taking time to explain points of confusion, this bias causes reps to revert to, “But it works! Trust me!”

Instead of insisting that the product addresses their prospect’s concern, salespeople need to act as trusted advisors. Reps can handle objections through sound reasoning, customer reviews, and testimonials, but the key is education. If your prospects are still asking questions disguised as objections, they don’t understand your product’s value well enough.. The prospect isn’t interested in whether the product works, they want to know how it will work for them.

7) Galatea Effect

The Galatea effect states if you believe you’re going to be a top performer, you’ll actually become one because of that mindset. 

The Galatea effect rears its head when a rep believes they were solely responsible for winning — or losing — a deal. After a deal goes bad, a rep can start to question their skills, which can lead to worse performance. On the other hand, if a call goes well, a confidence boost can be the foundation for a hot streak.

To overcome this bias, reps should examine every factor in each call and listen to coaching from their manager to remain objective. While the rep does play a major role in the decision, many other factors influence a prospect’s choice to buy or not. 

8) Choice Bias

The choice bias leads us to retroactively view our past choices in a positive light while overemphasizing negative attributes of options we didn’t select.

In sales, choice bias impacts your response to making a mistake. If a prospect turns out to be a bad fit, the bias influences the speed at which you come to terms with the mistake. It also protects you from being too hard on yourself, because you’re likely to remember the positives and look past the negatives. 

In order to be successful, make sure to pay attention to all relevant emerging information. Instead of assuming every decision you make is great, recognize when things haven’t gone the way you expected. Learning from your mistakes is a powerful tool.

9) Recency Bias

Recency bias is the tendency to believe patterns that have recently emerged are likely to continue in the future even if they contradict long-term data.

If a rep notices commonalities in their last five deals and abandons time-tested strategies, they’ve fallen for the recency bias. New data is exciting, but it could be an outlier. A larger sample size — the rep’s history over several months — is likely to be more accurate.

If the commonalities continue over time, however, reps should use these new insights in sales conversations going forward. Gut decisions have no place in modern sales; the data should speak for itself.

10) Gambler’s Fallacy

The gambler’s fallacy is the belief that an event is less likely in the future because it’s happening often in the present, even if the outcome of one event has no statistical impact on future ones.

After a rep has four or five bad calls, they might think their next one will go better because things will average out. But they’ve failed to realize that their previous calls have no impact on their upcoming one. 

This bias is dangerous because it can cause salespeople to expect their luck to change without any behavioral changes on their part. Reps can avoid this by digging deeper to understand why calls went poorly, and adjusting their strategy accordingly. Instead of trying the same thing over and over, changing tactics can put an end to the bad streak.

11) Hot Hand Fallacy

The inverse of the gambler’s fallacy is the hot hand fallacy — the mistaken belief that if you succeed (or fail) at a random event in the present, you’re likely to have more success (or failure) in the future because of it. 

When a rep closes several deals in a row and concludes that every call he makes going forward will be easy, he’s succumbed to the hot hand fallacy. These deals are closing because of hard work put in over the last few weeks, not because the rep is “heating up.”

Ultimately, it’s sales fundamentals that affect a rep’s success. Prospects convert because of hard work, research, and a great relationship, not because the rep is on a hot streak. 

12) Empathy Gap

The empathy gap is a phenomenon where we have difficulty putting ourselves in other people’s shoes if we aren’t currently in the same physical or emotional state — for example, if we are angry, we have a hard time understanding how others could be happy.

When reps and prospects are in completely different states of mind, reps need to be hyper-conscious of putting themselves in their prospect’s shoes instead of dismissing or minimizing their feelings. The empathy gap makes it more difficult for them to reach common ground, and can create disdain between the rep and prospect, souring the relationship before it even begins.

Ultimately, we don’t know which biases we have and how they’re affecting our behavior at any given moment. But we can learn to identify bias and adjust our behavior accordingly. Sales can be a highly emotional job — staying level-headed is part of being successful.