So you’ve gotten a taste for the hashtag (we can’t really blame you) and are back to learn more… Very smart.
The hashtag has become a mainstay in social media strategies, and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, anytime soon. As a reminder, in Hashtag 101– we learned its brief history, how to formulate a successful hashtag and some do’s and don’ts to keep in mind. In the 201 edition of your hashtag education, we’re taking things to the next level. We’ll discuss how tone and voice can really play a role in the use of hashtags within your social media posts and social media strategy; We’ll talk examples of hashtag success stories and #fails; Finally, you’ll learn about several sites which capture meaningful analytics and gauge the ROI of your hashtag strategy.
Designing a Social Media Strategy
First up- tone and voice. Think of your social media strategy as the voice of your brand’s persona- a living, breathing character that embodies the values that are important to your brand. This can be your personal brand if you’re posting from a personal account or the brand of whatever company you’re representing.
There are some important questions that you need to ask yourself, as you design your social media strategy. Is your brand serious and fact-based? Is your brand comical or fun? Or, is your brand a little bit of each? There are no wrong answers here, as long as you remain consistent. In Hashtag 101, we discussed the straightforward usage of the hashtag as a tool, a way to search for all content related to a certain topic. But this is not the only way to use a hashtag. If your brand or online persona is a bit more tongue-in-cheek, you can also use hashtags to provide colorful commentary. Celebrities do this frequently. Here are a couple of examples:
Obviously, if you clicked on any of the above hashtags, they wouldn’t generate a ton of content. They’re used more as “mutter into the hand” humor. This is a delicate gray area, that you only want to explore if it’s a part of your persona. Otherwise, it can come across as extremely provocative and negatively impact your brand’s presence.
Hashtag Wins and Fails
This brings us to our next topic—hashtag wins and fails over the years. When used properly, hashtags have been known to have incredible reach and positive impact.
One example is #givingtuesday, which the Twitterverse was first introduced to, in 2012. 2012 was a holiday season when consumerism appeared to have reached a peak. Where was the joy? The laughter? The bonding with family members near and far? It certainly seemed to have taken a dip as retail giants pursued greater holiday returns. #givingtuesday was created by a team at the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, an opportunity the Tuesday following Thanksgiving in the US to kick off the charitable season—sharing giving and philanthropic opportunities around the world and across the Web.
On the other end of the spectrum, the hashtag has been a #fail, no pun intended, many times over. This tends to happen specifically related to retail brands. Example? In 2011, Kenneth Cole himself tweeted from the company’s account. “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online…” This coincided with the Egyptian revolution in Cairo, and the internet went wild. Let’s just say, the Twitterverse was not amused.
Business Strategy Tools
It all comes down to common sense and ensuring that you have a strategy in place. This includes the use of a pre-set editorial calendar, and hopefully tools to gauge the success and ROI of your tweets. This brings us to the final topic today- business strategy tools. There are many to leverage, depending on the size of your company and what kind of analytics you’re looking to garner. Why not start right at the source? Twitter for Business is a great tool to explore, it will track the impact of each tweet, each photo that you post and each follower that you gain. These learnings can create both quantitative and qualitative takeaways that you can bring back to your team, finessing your strategy for future seasons. Other tools to explore include Tableau, Hootsuite, and Buffer.
Source: Yarra Web
To know more how using hashtag can help in your marketing strategy contact the professional digital marketers in your area. Another great way of a marketing strategy is adding your business to Top4, the newest Australian Social Media Marketing Platform that connects trusted local businesses and national brands with Australian customers who are actively looking for their services or products. Top4 is a new feature-rich publishing and advertising platform that allows Australian consumers to find rated businesses, tradespeople and service providers in their area and Australia wide, and then connect and evaluate the best fit before making a purchasing decision. Bringing together complete business profiles, curated content and social network integration, Top4 helps businesses and brands create engaging customer experiences in a user-friendly, versatile and cost-effective way.
