Hashtags first became clickable back in 2009 and businesses quickly caught on to using them to create, follow and track conversations on Twitter. Nowadays, you’ll find hashtags being used across many different social media platforms when they form part of an online marketing campaign.
When used properly, a hashtag can be a great way of helping your business spread its message to your target market. But there can be a fine line between success and failure and it’s important to understand how to get it right so that your customers and prospects feel motivated to explore and share new content.
Check out these tips to help you achieve hashtag success.
6 Tips For Hashtag Success
Use actionable language
Use a hashtag that recommends an action i.e. tells your consumer to ‘do’ something. This is like a ‘call to action’ for your tweets, where your audience knows exactly what it needs to do.
Be entertaining
Not only does entertaining content give your business some personality and humanise your brand but it is more likely to be shared by your Twitter followers.
Motivate your audience
An incentive (such as a competition) that is easy for your audience to take part in is another effective way to spark people’s interest and get them to use the hashtag.
Engage with your followers
People love to know that you’re listening, so find ways to show your followers that you’re paying attention to them. Find ways to engage throughout your campaign, think about retweeting a handful of the comments or competition entries you receive.
Be unique
It’s important to check that no one is using your hashtag before you launch your campaign. Companies have been caught out by using something that was already being talked about, which meant the tone of could be misinterpreted. Create a unique hashtag so that you don’t get lost in the conversation.
Save yourself any headaches
Before you launch any campaign make sure your campaign couldn’t ignite any negative responses and make sure you have a plan in place in case anything backfires. Knowing exactly how you would respond to negative tweets means you avoid being caught by surprise.
