Best Hashtags for Holiday Contests, Sales and Marketing

Ready to make a Christmas list?No, not a list of gifts, but rather a list of hashtags to use for your Christmas and December holiday-related contests, giveaways, and other seasonal promotions.On both Instagram and Twitter, hashtags remain a popular way to start conversations around information people are looking for during this time of year, and they're also a way for people who are looking for specific things to discover your brand.

Here are a few hashtags that might be used for your holiday marketing efforts, along with a few suggestions for topics you could center your online conversations around.Ideally, you want to use some general hashtags, like the ones on this list, and create at least one that is unique to your brand.If you've had luck helping people discover your brand using hashtags during the holidays, let us know on Twitter. Use the hashtag #HashtagTheHolidays.And if you've ever wanted to host a hashtag giveaway, you can learn about ShortStack's hashtag contest capabilities here.

Top hashtags for holiday contests and promotions

#contest #[yourbrand]contest #contests #contestalert #contestentry #sweepstakes #[yourbrand]sweepstakes #giveaway #[yourbrandgiveaway] #giveaways #winitwednesday #competition #win

Hashtags for Holiday Shopping and Sales

Tis the season when people are looking for deals. And they're increasingly looking for deals via their smartphones where hashtags are especially at home. #BlackFriday #BlackFri #CyberMonday #CyberMon #HolidaySavings (special offers) #HolidayDeals #HolidayDeal #FreeShipping #SuperSaturday #GivingTuesday #DIY #Handmade #wishlist ((To find out what your customers really want -- take it a step further and use ShortStack to host a "Win Your Wishlist" giveaway.) #Shopping #Christmas (favorite Christmas traditions, recipes, gift ideas) #Hannukah (favorite Hannukah traditions, recipes and gift ideas) #Kwanza (favorite Kwanza traditions, recipes and gift ideas)#NewYears (celebration ideas, recipes, resolutions, accomplishments)

Hashtags for Charitable Giving

#GivingTuesday #Charity #Donate #Donation

Hashtags for Holiday Travel

When it comes to creating hashtags for travel, the sky's the limit.

Hashtag your location

What are you showing off? Your hotel? Your restaurant? Your brick and mortar location? You can use hashtags to help people find you. #LakeTahoe #SanFrancisco #NewYork #NYC #LosAngeles #Chicago

Hashtag the points of interest around you

#StatueOfLiberty #GoldenGateBridge #CentralPark #MiracleMile #DodgerStadium #SpaceNeedle

Hashtag things to do around your location/hotel

#Skiing #Hiking #FlyFishing #Theate r#Cycling #Museums #ChelseaMarket

Hashtags for Restaurants

The good news for restaurant owners is that food is always trending! On Instagram, especially, people love to share images of what they're eating and what they're cooking. #Breakfast #WhatsForBreakfast #brunch #SundayBrunch #nomnom #goodeats #tasty #healthy #vegetarian #vegan #goodeats #recipe #paleo #cleaneating #whole30 #organic #yummy #pizza #chinese #wine #IPA #local

Best Practices for Hashtags

• Use hashtags that relate to your brand, not just because they're "trending." If you hop on a hashtag bandwagon in order to align your brand, or your offer, with something newsworthy, you might catch some attention, but it might not be the attention you want.

‍• Pay attention to readability. You'll note that in some hashtags above, we use the lower case, and in others we use upper and lower cases. There isn't a right or wrong way, just make sure your hashtags are readable. For example, #blackfridaysale is more difficult to make sense of then #BlackFridaySale. Twitter and Instagram don't distinguish  between cases so a search for #blackfridaysale and #BlackFridaySale will return the same list.

‍• Don't overdo it. Yes, hashtags are fun as long as you don't get carried away. For awhile, prevailing wisdom on Instagram was that 11 hashtags was the sweet spot and on Twitter, two seems to be the consensus. That said, use hashtags that make sense for your brand and for whatever you're trying to accomplish with your post.