Hashtags: Using Hashtags in Brand Experiences

Hashtags have really exploded, whether it’s people using way too many of them in their Facebook statuses or Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake making a popular sketch parodying this fact. However, hashtags are also an effective branding and marketing tool since they are part of creating a brand experience and engaging consumers via social media. Networks will invite viewers to live tweet to a hashtag of the show they’re watching. News organizations use them to collect people’s thoughts and opinions on popular stories. Social media sites such as Tumblr and Twitter use hashtags to serve essential functions by grouping data and reaching out to different target audiences. Still, companies can use hashtags more creatively, especially in branding and marketing.

Here are a few suggestions:
Some of these have been used already. However, they are underutilized.

1. Creative Competitions
Consumers may not always realize it, but they are often competing with one another when they participate in campaigns enacted by companies they follow. For example, Con Edison could launch an #energysaver campaign if they were promoting a new additional service that customers could purchase. They could ask for people to Tweet to or send suggestions to the hashtag related to energy saving ideas. For example, a customer could Tweet “revolving doors in NYC should generate electricity @ConEdison #energysaver.” Here’s where the competition comes in: Con Edison could have incentives, whether it is simply retweeting their favorites ideas sent to that hashtag or even offering the people who sent the best ideas discounts on the new service they’re promoting. In this case, Con Edison isn’t asking people to compete with each other. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

2. Inviting Consumers to Build the Brand
Hashtags are an effective way for people to retain memorable characters and stories featured in brands. Hashtags also provide a method for them to possibly add their own chapter to the narrative. People love to joke around on YouTube or on blogs about what the narrator will say in the next Dos Equis commercial. Why not make it a hashtag so these comments get collected and expounded upon? Companies can even put them on file for later use. Here’s just one example:
“Four Times Distilled Vokda becomes Five Times Distilled when he drinks it. #MostInterestingManintheWorld #staythirsty.”

3. Inflating Your Sphere of Influence
More than anything, a hashtag is a medium for people from various channels and sites to send information to the same place. This means reverse tracking is possible. If someone sees a hashtag, it will only take them moments to click a few times and trace it back to the brand or explore the other social media venues it has reached. A hashtag that starts on a company’s Facebook page can explode and spread to the point where it is a trending topic on Twitter. The company that started the hashtag can then study this data they have collected and use it to better understand the demographics they are reaching and which platforms react best to the hashtag.

Now it’s your turn. We challenge you to create a memorable hashtag as part of the experience you give your customers and send it to us at our hashtag and/or by tagging us in your post. You don’t have to work in marketing though. You can also just do it for fun.

#HashtagExperiences @TheHaloGroup