Did you know that on average tweets with between one and two hashtags will see a 21% higher level of engagement? That’s just one stat floating around online that suggest hashtags could be your new best friend. Particularly, when marketing a brand, product or service.
Of course, we’re not suggesting that you should #hashtageverything. As with any tool, it’s important to know when to utilize hashtags to gain the greatest impact and ensure they provide the results you want.
Create Brand Hashtags
It is possible to create your own hashtags that are specific to your brand. The benefit of this tactic is that you will immediately make your content more discoverable to people who know about your brand or have heard of it. You can condition them to search for the hashtags by adding them to your marketing campaign. You could even use a brand hashtag as the central business campaign element for your social networking promotions.
To initiate this tactic the right way, you need to make sure that you are completing a thorough search. Your hashtag needs to be unique to your brand and this can be tricky if your company’s name is similar to others on the market.
Your hashtag needs to be short too so it’s easy to type and remember. A lot of hashtag campaigns struggle, particularly when initiated by general users because of spelling errors. In some cases, it can cause the incorrect hashtag to trend and that can be quite embarrassing.
The brand tag for KitKat is #haveabreak. It’s short, sweet and it’s synonymous with the brand identity.
Hashtags For Campaigns
You can create hashtags for your campaign. This once again helps ensure that the campaign is discovered and it allows you to cultivate conversation. The people using the hashtag are all going to be interested in the subject. This makes it more likely that they will be both active and engaged which together make the best type of users. This can bring your campaign to life and it can lead to you gaining a deeper understanding of perspectives on your brand as well as your individual campaign. It can even lead to user-generated content. This is a fantastic element for your marketing campaign because it once again ensures that your customers are engaging.
The trick here is making sure that customers are going to use the hashtag so that they can find other members of the community online and connect to them. There are lots of ways to do this but one of the best is to ensure that users have to utilize the hashtag to unlock value. For instance, you could be running a special promotion. If this is the case, instruct users that they need to add the hashtag to a post to access the deal.
Now Trending
Every day hashtags are trending. For instance, while writing this #NoTimeToDie is trending on twitter because of the new James Bond trailer. A hashtag topic that trends is going to be incredibly popular and will be the subject of numerous discussions online. When #ReleaseTheSnyderCut trended it was tweeted by key influencers and was used over 750,000 times in one day.
There’s potential here so it’s worth paying attention. It is, however, crucial that the trending hashtag is relevant to your business or that you can tie it into a marketing campaign. Otherwise, you might irritate users who recognize you’re just using the hashtag to promote. There’s even a “silence brand” meme which is commonly used whenever this type of behavior is noticed.
Find the right hashtag that connects to your brand and you will be able to market to a massive audience. Be warned though, if you do spam trends then you could actually get your social media account suspended.
Seasonal And Activity Hashtags
Finally, there are always hashtags floating around for certain events, seasons or particular activities. These are some of the most searched hashtags online, so it does make sense to make them a part of your campaign. It’s another great way to start a conversation or even join one. For instance, your business could be attending a convention or exhibition. If so, then it’s worth hashtagging to make sure investors and attendees know that you are going to be part of the event. You could gain views and follows by taking this step.
We hope this helps you understand the correct way to utilize hashtags as part of your marketing campaign and why they are so vital. If you need more support, do make sure that you connect with Pivotal New Media for their incredible social media marketing services.
