The hashtag is marvellous – its a way to equally tag (market), and undermine (mock) what we say. In its mocking mode, the hashtag works as paralanguage communicating non-verbal ideas (like sarcasm) both online and offline. In it’s marketing mode, it’s a powerful way to group your content around your marketing strategy.
Hashtags are not just for Twitter, or Instagram, or even Facebook and LinkedIn. Hashtags categorise content and make that content more discoverable in searches both in your social media channels and on Google.
Hashtags engage your audience, and drive engagement with likes, comments and shares. 75% of people on social media use hashtags and on Twitter, a hashtag doubles engagement.
You should think of hashtags as part of your branding kit – to engage your audience around an event you are holding, or for instance, an ad campaign. Hashtags can even be trademarked like #imlovingit #justdoit
See for yourself
I have a couple of unique hashtags, my #treetwoproject (picture diary from my morning walk), if you Google it, the first page comes back with social media links, but on page two you will find the website where the project lives because the text and images include the hashtag. I sometimes use #angiefuz (that’s just me), and my cheeky little-used rant #monkeysandchainsaws – tools and techniques will get you a long way, but you also need talent – I have the domain name too!
Polite warning
Of course you should research a hashtags uniqueness using Google, or one of the many hashtag suggestion sites (like hashtagify.me), and remember that it should be relevant and specific to either your audience, or campaign etc. And of course check it reads well – which Susan Boyles album launch party obviously did not #susanalbumparty
A hashtag too far ;D
Sometimes, we need to take a deep breath and decide to do it again, better. Seth Godin
#angiefuz #brandingbuddy