5 Brilliant Ways to Use #Hashtags in Social Media Marketing by Uri Bar-Joseph

I was watching the Super Bowl (#GoHawks) when my wife asked me about hashtags. Granted, I was writing down every hashtag that came up on the screen for an analysis I did later that night, but her question surprised me.

"What do you mean 'what is this?' It's a hashtag." I said, amazed by my wife's unfamiliarity with the topic (#DoYouLiveUderARock). "You use it to tag your tweets or other social media posts."

Now, my wife's social media activity revolves around reading other people's updates on Facebook and Instagram, so I wasn't mad or anything, just disappointed when she asked me "Why would you want to tag your posts?"

To be fair, it wasn't always that obvious that hashtags will change the way we use Twitter and other social media channels.

Hashtags were a user-innovation that was later adopted by Twitter as an actual feature when Twitter decided to hyperlink hashtags to search results. The rest of the socialsphere followed in its own pace, and Facebook, my wife's go-to social destination, only recently decided to give in and add hashtags as a feature. It's no surprise that for the masses over the age of 30, hashtags are still a novelty.

So whether you're in that group, or just want a short social history lessons, here's the brief history of hashtags. Then we'll look at a few recent examples of brilliant marketing uses of hashtags.

A Brief History of Hashtags

There seems to be a consensus on the origin of hashtags and most people attribute the proposal to use hashtags in tweets to Chris Messina, through a tweet dating back to August 23, 2007.

But the first time a hashtag was used extensively as a way to categorize tweets and was adopted by the public was during the San Diego fire on October 23, 2007, when Nate Ritter used Twitter to report on the fire and included the hashtag #sandiegofire.

On July 2, 2009, Twitter officially embraced hashtags and hyperlinked them to search results. Tumblr was one of the early adopters of hashtags when it launched hashtags on August 18, 2009. A few months later, on March 30, 2010, in another homepage redesign, Twitter moved Trending Topics to its homepage, formalizing hashtags as a conversation driver on Twitter.
As Twitter users adopted hashtags as a normal part of the Twitter conversation, in a typical fashion to Twitter, hashtags stared in popular culture like TV shows, celebrities' promotions and mainstream media.

The pop-culture adoption of hashtags helped push hashtags into other social networks. Instagram adopted hashtags on January 27, 2011, Flickr added hashtags on March 17, 2013 and Facebook finally broke and adopted hashtags on June 12, 2013.

Hashtags Adopted as a Marketing Tactic

An analysis of the Interbrand 100 list (the world's top 100 brands) and their activity on Twitter, reveals that the world's top brands have adopted the use of hashtags almost completely. In Q4 of last year, 97 percent of the brands posted at least one tweet that included a hashtag. Out of the 34,707 regular tweets (tweets that don't include an @ reply or a retweet) that the Interbrand 100 companies posted, 45 percent included at least one hashtag and more than 67 percent included one or more hashtags.

1. Drive Engagement: # + Link = More Engagement

These companies have realized that hashtags help drive engagement. When compared to Tweets without a hashtag, tweets with hashtags showed 12 percent more engagement (RT, favorite or @ reply). Tweets that included a link anda hashtag, showed the highest engagement rate of any other type of tweet.

2. Test Your Messaging: #SOTU

During the last State of the Union address (#SOTU), the White House media team prepared content and tested 26 different hashtags.

1. #SOTU
2. #StateOfTheUnion
3. #OutOfManyWeAreOne
4. #OpportunityForAll
5. #CollegeOpportunity
6. #MadeInAmerica
7. #ActOnClimate
8. #ActForOurVets
9. #RebuildAmerica
10. #ActOnJobs
11. #InvestInSTEM
12. #ActOnCIR
13. #ActOnUI
14. #ActOnPreK
15. #ConnectED
16. #EqualPay
17. #RaiseTheWage
18. #ActOnTenTen
19. #GetCovered
20. #ACA
21. #PeopleOverPolitics
22. #RightToVote
23. #ActForOurKids
24. #SaluteOurTroops
25. #Iran
26. #TeamUSA
27. #ActForOurTroops
28. #SOTUChat

The next day (January 29) the White House focused on only seven of these hashtags and the vast majority of its tweets promoted the top three hashtags:

1. #OpportunityForAll
2. #RaiseTheWage
3. #EqualPay
4. #ActOnJobs
5. #ActOnTenTen
6. #CollegeOpportunity
7. #MadeInAmerica

They did so because those hashtags resonated the best with audience on Twitter.


As evident by these charts, the White House team used Twitter to test the messages in the president's speech and the following day applied their lessons to emphasize and reinforce the ones that stuck.
The #SOTU campaign is a master class in digital media campaign management, and this was one of the best lessons from it.

3. Tie Activity Across Multiple Channels: #SB48

During #SB48, ads included more hashtags than any other social signal including Twitter handles and Facebook account names. Brands used hashtags because of their cross-channel nature.
Since most social media channels adopted hashtags as an identifier, brands can now run cross-channel campaigns with one common identifier, virtually making hashtags the global connector of the social web.

4. Create a Story: #esurancesave30

Following the Super Bowl, Esurance ran an ad promoting the hashtag #esurancesave30. Within minutes, the hashtag got tens of thousands of mentions and within an hour it racked over 1.4 million mentions. With a simple, albeit expensive, campaign, Esurance created a story that was featured the next day on media outlets, blogs, and last Wednesday on TV.

The hashtag brought to Esurance more than just attention, it gave them a list of people who actually engaged with their story and brand.

In the minutes following the ad, the Esurance Twitter account added more than 40,000 followers, more than doubling its followers in a matter of minutes. And in the days following the ad, the account added more than 250,000 followers, almost 10 times it's audience size prior to the ad airing.

5. Track Results: #Whosgonnawin

Leading to the Super Bowl, the NFL and Verizon created a campaign to allow fans to vote on who they think is going to win the Super Bowl. By tweeting the team's name with the hashtag #WhosGonnaWin fans voted for their favorite team.

Verizon and the NFL created a special website to track the results in real time http://www.whosgonnawin.com/ every day a new question was posted and fans voted using Twitter. By the end of the day, the team with the most mentions got to light up the Empire State Building.

Summary

Hashtags have become more than just a way to categorize posts or add a narrative to your updates. Marketers have found new, innovative ways to use hashtags as a mean to drive conversation, harness the public support, and garner attention to their brands.

Courtesy of Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC.

Need help with Managing YOUR Social Media Campaign?
Contact us and visit: http://www.janetpennconsulting.com/social_mediamarketing.html

How To Really Use Twitter Hashtags by Jessica Davis

Twitter users originally used hashtags to categorize and identify their tweets. It became so popular that Twitter decided to integrate it into their platform and improve upon it.

Hashtags are now used to categorize tweets, to help twitter users find tweets on certain topics, and to identify trending themes. They are also a great way to get your tweets noticed.

If you didn't know yet, a hashtag is a word or phrase that is written without any spaces and prefixed with a '#' symbol. Like so: #example

With hashtags used in almost every tweet how do you make sure your tweets stand out? Here are a few tips on using hashtags in your tweets to catch fellow tweeters attention.

Follow Basic Hashtag Etiquettes

Don't use more than two, maybe three, hashtags per tweet as it can make your tweet seem spammy.

It is understandable that you want your tweet to show up in as many search results as possible on Twitter but your tweet will have little value if you use up most of the 140 characters for hashtags.

Also, you need to use hashtags that are relevant to your tweet. There may be trending hashtags and you may want to use them badly in your tweet but you will end up annoying your followers and other Twitter users with unrelated tweets.

Use Hashtags That Are Obvious

Sometimes Twitter users end up abbreviating names and using them as hashtags but the abbreviation may not always be understandable. As a result, numerous tweets often get published on the same topic but the hashtags never trend as people end up using variations of the hashtag in their tweets.

Create and use hashtags that are easy to understand so that anyone else tweeting on the same topic can understand and use your hashtag easily.

To make your hashtags more comprehensible avoid writing the whole hashtag in lower case. Use upper case characters to give more sense to your hashtag. Example: #BigEvent

Find The Right Hashtags

Sometimes it is best to use an existing hashtag instead of creating your own hashtag and waiting for it to trend. Finding trending topics is a difficult task even for long-time Twitter users.

Twitter does display the most popular hashtags but how do you find the hashtags that are just beginning to trend?

Some of the most popular tools to identify trending hashtags:

Twubs

What the Trend

Hashtags.org

Track Hashtags

Tracking hashtags can help you find and choose which hashtag to use in your tweet.

Tracking a hashtag can give you an idea of how popular the hashtag will be and there are various tools that help track hashtags.

Real time tracking is offered by these tools:

Twitterfall

Monitter

Be Consistent

Hashtags are best used when promoting events, conferences, etc. Many events take place every month or year; using the same hashtag for every instance of the event is a great way to build a buzz around events. Take for example #SXSW, which represents South by Southwest Interactive, Film and Music Festival that takes place every year. The organizers use the same hashtag every year and it creates a lot of buzz almost instantly.

Use the hashtag that you have chosen for your event on other social media platforms too. Although hashtags may not mean much on every site it will help people identify your hashtag when they log into Twitter.

Remind followers about your event by using the hashtag frequently in your tweets.

Use Hashtags Offline

Hashtags are universally recognizable and smart companies are using them off the web too.

Using hashtags in print advertising will make people want to get on Twitter and find the hashtag.

Some hashtags have even been painted on the pitch by sports teams so that even people watching the sporting event on their televisions will be aware of the hashtag.

Create Q&A Sessions

Hashtags are a great way for users to ask you questions and it is one of the easiest ways to build a buzz around your brand. Many celebrities and famous personalities have used hashtags to answer questions from fans and answering questions hardly takes any effort or time. Users can ask you questions by using the designated hashtag in their tweets and you can use the hashtag to find their questions.

Jessica Davis is a Senior Copywriter with Godot Media – a leading content writing services company. She works closely with other article writers at Godot, creating engaging content for the company's clients. Her other interests, besides content and social media marketing, are technology, sports and fashion.http://www.searchenginepeople.com

Need help with Optimizing YOUR social media marketing?

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