Hashtags for Greater Branding Benefits

Hashtags: you may even have experimented by casually littering a few within your tweets, but are you using them effectively?

Twitter’s own research shows that the use of hashtags in a post can lead to double the user engagement for individuals and 50% more for brands. The research is a couple of years old, and only conducted on approximately 150 brands, but there are numerous other reports that show similar findings too.

In short, you should be using #hashtags in your Twitter marketing.

Research Appropriate Tags

The first step is to find appropriate keywords. Start with the main categories, or keywords, for your site. Also consider looking at the posts in your timeline to see the hashtags that are being used by those that you follow. Draw up a list combining your own thoughts with those you have taken from influencers in your industry.

Find Related Tags

Hashtagify.me remains a powerful, useful, and free tool. Enter your keyword or hashtag in the search box. You will be presented with a number of related tags in circles, and the bigger the circle the more popular that tag is. Under the graphic, you can click Table Mode so that you can enjoy an easier-to-read representation of the most popular, related tags.

Check The Spelling

This is a more important rule for those that create their own hashtags, and especially those that combine two or more words. Singer Susan Boyle found to her detriment that combining words can have a very negative effect, when #SusanAlbumParty went viral as #SusAnalBumParty.

Ensure You Don’t Piggy Back On Other Campaigns

DiGiorno Pizzas recently saw the hashtag #WhyIStayed, and quickly tweeted a response that read “Why I Stayed: You Had Pizza” before taking the time to check the original intention of the tag. It turns out, that it was being used by victims of domestic abuse to explain why they stayed with abusive partners. Always be extra vigilant before you jump in on an existing hashtag campaign.

If necessary, check on Tagdef to see whether there rae any definitions for a tag that you are considering using – it could save you a red face.

Test Your Hashtags

Once you have a list of hashtags that you are considering using, there is no better place to test them than on Twitter itself.

Ideally, you should be testing everything from the best day of the week to the best time of the day to Tweet. You should also determine whether images and videos help spread the word further, and consider trying different lengths of tweets too.

Use a tool like Tweetdeck, prepare the basis of your Tweet, and then create a handful of versions and schedule them to post separately. Ideally, you should test this by posting a single tweet a day, on the same or similar days, and only changing the hashtag that you use in your message. Don’t forget to include one that doesn’t have any hashtags.

Start Hashtagging

Research shows that one or two hashtags can greatly increase engagement, but more than this will see lower engagement figures. Get started, but don’t get greedy.

Track Your Own Results

Always track and monitor your own social media results, rather than, or as well as, using online tools. You can store exactly the data that you want, manipulate it to greater effect, and create more accurate testing results. Stick to the hashtags that give the best results, but don’t be afraid to test new ones every now and then to enjoy even greater results. At the very least, ensure you use one or two relevant, targeted hashtags with every tweet.

Hashtags are no longer useful

Some marketers say that “there was a time when hashtags were used as a great way to organize tweets.” In fact, it’s still great for specific campaigns or events so a group of attendees or participants can share and monitor content related to that campaign/event. But when it comes to topic-related hashtags (e.g. #marketing #boston), people don’t really monitor those hashtags, so your organized content is not reaching a new audience. Today, hashtags have also become a way to make a comment about the rest of the tweet. For example: “Had to wait for AN HOUR to get my iPhone 5 today. #1stworldproblems”

Now, check out these two funny videos joking about the excessive amount of hashtags some people have been using these days:

Brands are not logos. Brands are experiences. A #brand is a code. #branding #CX #storytelling http://t.co/bkdDYMSUDq pic.twitter.com/hSlbVliwWO

— lucas compan (@9branding) July 18, 2015

#Cheers!