Anyone who has set up a business page on Facebook or Google+, or tried their hand at regular blogging will know that it's not always easy to generate quality content on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. The problem arises when you're called on to generate something unique that speaks for your brand and offers practical value to your audience. There are only so many things any one organization is going to have expertise in and, if that organization means you, an individual, the problem becomes even more acute. You find yourself trawling other peoples' content to gather knowledge and inspiration but subsequently feel like a plagiarist when regurgitating it, even after you've fact checked it and put it in your own words.

There comes a point when you need to get over yourself. Everyone knows that a wheel is round. I'm sure that, at some point, there was an individual who pointed this out for the first time but that didn't mean that no one else could or should point it out again. On the contrary. A meme is often referred to as a mind virus. It's an idea that spreads by virtue of the inherent value it holds to a given individual, inspiring that individual to pass it on. It is good social etiquette to give credit to the originator of that idea if at all possible but in doing so, ultimately it makes you look just as good as the originator you're noting. It's shows you in a light of someone who is well read and practices good manners, something which anyone can appreciate as virtuous.

I cannot begin to tell you how many of my potential clients have an attitude toward social media which goes something like this: "We'll scroll through our Facebook timeline every day and, if we find something interesting, we'll either share it or poach it and repost it. Otherwise we'll just think of something witty to say, and post it as a status. Sometimes we get a few "likes" and, now and then, we'll get a "comment". It all a bit of fun really, but for some reason, none of what we post seems to build our brand or increase our visibility.  Can you help?"

First of all, social media used on its own does not constitute an online marketing campaign. It was never designed to take the place of traditional marketing but, instead, complement it. Secondly, the "making it up as you go along" approach will never bring success to any small business wanting to increase its market share, whether in social media or otherwise. In order to be successful you need a plan based on a goal and a well thought out strategy of how to achieve it. So, how does your business approach this issue?

A hashtag is a word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the number sign "#". It is a form of metadata tag. Words in messages on microblogging and social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, VK or Instagram etc may be tagged by putting "#" before them, either as they appear in a sentence, e.g. "New artists announced for #SXSW2014 Music Festival" or appended to it. The term "hashtag" can also refer to the hash symbol itself.

Hashtags make it possible to group such messages, since one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it. A hashtag is only connected to a specific medium and can therefore not be linked and connected to pictures or messages from different platforms.

Because of its widespread use, the word was added to the Oxford English dictionary in June 2014.

Okay, so now that I have given you the Wikipedia definition, let me discuss with you why it is imperative for you to include hashtags in your postings, as well as take advantage of hashtag postings across the Internet.