How to use Hashtag Marketing Strategies to boost brand Awareness?
A simple “#” symbol can create such a lot of difference when it comes to making your content discoverable. All you need to do is add the symbol in front of the word, group of words or combination of letters, words and emoji that you use to categorize your content.
The IRC’s or Internet Relay Chats were where Hashtags were introduced for the first time, way back in 1988.
They made it easier for users to find relevant content that included messages, images, and videos.
From IRC the hashtag found its way to Twitter when the former Google designer, Chris Messina, used it in Twitter Chat in 2007. Hashtags made it possible for Twitter users to create open group discussions on a particular topic. It is 11 years hence; but the essence remains the same.
Today more and more social media sites have started using hashtags to highlight trending topics on their platforms. Seeing this as an opportunity many marketers have started coming up with innovative hashtag marketing strategies to create brand awareness and engage with their target audience.
Here are a few hashtag marketing strategies that you can use to boost your brand awareness:
- Creating your own brand hashtag
The brand hashtag strategy is the one you need to use if you want to highlight your brand as unique and enjoy a competitive edge in the market. Once you have your own hashtag it becomes easy to promote any new products or services that you may want to launch under your brand. Using your brand name as a hashtag is the most common practice adopted across the world. However, you can also use your main keyword as your hashtag.
If you are using your brand name as your hashtag, you will have to do some legwork to make people start using this hashtag. Here are a few steps you may have to take in order to do that:
· Add it in your email signature
· Put it on your website
· If you have a physical location, you can even put it on your window decal
· Span it across all the social media networks where you have established your presence.
· Encourage your customers to use your hashtag by offering them incentives. For instance, you can give away a coupon to a hashtag user that you randomly select on an everyday basis.
Here are a few hashtag marketing examples that should help you figure out what you can do to boost your brand awareness and increase your sales:
Coca-Cola’s idea to encourage users to use its hashtag #ShareACoke worked like magic. Their wish to buy a bottle of coke with their name on it drove many coke fans crazy. The brand was rewarded with tons of user generated content and massive sales for incorporating personalization on such a large scale.
Another hashtag marketing strategy that worked wonders was RedBull’s #PutACanOnIt. Simple and fun, the idea of sharing some of the best content that the users had created kicked off almost instantly. With the users doing most of the work, RedBull made a lot of sales at hardly any cost.
Domino’s managed to get 85,000 tweets in one day through its hashtag marketing strategy. To increase its sales it lowered the cost of the pizza for every user who retweeted #LetsDoLunch. Not only did people rush to get the cheapest pizza ever, they even formed a community around the brand.
2. Coming up with a hashtag for every campaign
Every time you run a marketing campaign you can create a new hashtag. Again you can use your campaign name as your hashtag or a word or phrase which is unique to your promotion or contest. Nevertheless it has to be unique. By using a campaign hashtag, you can find a way to keep your customers engaged for as long as you run your campaign. You will have to make it mandatory for users to use your campaign hashtag in order to participate in your contest.
Just before the 2018 Winter Olympics, Visa came up with a special hashtag marketing campaign called #TeamVisa. Timed well around a trending topic, the campaign managed to draw all the attention that was needed to their program.
Building a campaign around a contest always works well, no matter what the contest is. A perfect example is Ryu’s Instagram hashtag campaign #WhatsInYourBag which helped them increase their follower count to over 20,000.
3. Making the Most out of Trending Hashtags
Any hashtag topic that is popular is a trending hashtag. They are topics that are most talked about. They keep changing continuously in real time. Within minutes you will see a top 10 trend come and go. You need to keep checking for a trend related to your business, if you want your content be seen by a massive audience, even if it is for a short period of 15 seconds. However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
· Post only to trends that are related to your business
· Do not post to too many trends
· Don’t try to spam trending hashtags. Your Twitter account might get suspended if you do.
· Be as quick as possible while using trending hashtags. This way your content and your brand will get good exposure
To use a trending hashtag effectively, you have to post a content update that includes the hashtag. However you have to relate the moment with your product and make sure your message is crafted with your audience in mind. Oreo made the most out of the trending topic #SuperBowl #Blackout through it’s ‘You can still Dunk in the Dark’ Tweet.
You can find trending hashtags on almost all social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+. For trends on Twitter see the left hand side of your Twitter feed. Facebook shows trending topics on top-right corner of the screen. You can check out the “What’s Hot” section for Google Plus Tweets. For more popular tag and in-depth trending opportunities you can check out websites such as Hashtags.org, Statigram, and Trendsmap.
4. Engaging with Customers through Community Hashtags
Many large brands make use of community hashtags in order to engage their customer database. This is a hashtag that will be given by the consumers on a photo that has the brand or its product. The best among these would be selected and featured on the brand’s feed.
Apart from helping brands in boosting awareness and adding authenticity to their feeds through user generated content, this hashtag marketing strategy also helps consumers connect with the larger community. West Elm used its community hashtag #mywestelm to enable its customers to share their style of decorating their homes.
5. Using Content-Reflecting Hashtags
Content reflecting hashtag is all about tagging words pertaining to the content of a post. For instance, if you are tweeting about social media ads, you can use the hashtag #digitalmarketing. It is like search optimizing your content. When consumers perform general searches to look for a particular product or some information, they may stumble upon your posts.
Content reflecting hashtags work well for companies that sell physical products, participate in events and operate in a set location. Your posts can be about niche topics irrespective of whether they are trending or not. They may or may not merit a brand hashtag. You need to be an early result if you want your content to earn a click, follow or a reply.
Content-reflecting hashtags may include:
· Product hashtags: You can use common product tags to post content about your products. Make sure they connect both your product and your market.
· Lifestyle hashtags: You can make use of lifestyle hashtags to connect with people who have common lifestyles. Research on a few well used hashtags that reflect your demographics, hobbies or lifestyles.
· Event hashtags: If your business is participating in a certain event, using an event hashtag would be the perfect way to tell your social connections about it. It could be a well-known global celebration, a local community fair, a product launch, or even a live webinar.
· Location hashtags: locally based businesses can make the best of location hashtags to help connect with their local customers. Make sure you look for specific geo-targeted hashtags.
Here are a few tips that can come in handy while making use of content-reflecting hashtags:
· Check out a few tags that may be used by your competition, your followers, as well as your product partners
· Use related hashtags to engage with people.This can be done through retweeting, posting a comment on Instagram or giving a like on Facebook.
· Take care not to spam your posts by using many content-reflecting hashtags. You will end up looking salesy, without gaining the trust of your consumers.
One of the popular content-reflecting hashtags on Instagram is #CleanEating which has been successfully carried over onto other social platforms including Twitter.
6. Making use of Call-to-Action Hashtags
If you want your online community to take the action that you want them to take, you should start using the CTA hashtag. A Call-to-Action hashtag starts usually with a verb, which could be “talk,” “share,” or anything else. Apart from a few short words this hashtag should also provide additional instruction. For instance, #TalkAboutMentalHealth is a hashtag that is run by a healthcare charity. By using a CTA hashtag you should be able to see posts that involve people taking appropriate action, across social media.
CTA hashtags are very popular among the consumers because they make them feel as though they are contributing to a vital cause. For example, in the mental health example mentioned above, people would follow the hashtag as it might make them challenge the stigma of a certain mental illness.
Since Twitter posts don’t take more than 140 characters, your CTAs will have to be short and sweet. If you are looking for how to use hashtags that drive action, here are a few CTAs you can use:
· The “Free Trial” CTA: All those who love to get something for free, will click your tweet happily to redeem it. Once they do that you can ask them to enter their email address, to get a qualified lead.
· The “Read More” CTA: All those who are interested in getting more meat of your content will click on this CTA. You can use the “Read More” CTA to share snippets of your blog posts. It can help you drive more traffic to your website.
· The “Retweet This” CTA: These are low-effort CTAs that you can use to engage with those who may not be ready to purchase your product or service.
· The “Subscribe / Buy Now” CTA: this CTA injects urgency into your marketing strategy. Used properly, they have the power to produce immediate action.
· The “download” CTA: This type of CTA can help you expand your user base and create an amazing email list.
7. Hosting Twitter Chats
One best way to generate interest of your target audience within a short period of time is to host a Twitter chat using hashtags. For instance you could post questions after using a unique branded hashtag. Every time a person wants to ask a question, answer one, or add his/her comments, he/she has to use the hashtag. These tags can kick off conversations among users and increase their interest to visit the website.
Experian, the credit reporting fir, made use of #CreditChat to tag its participants. They also come up with #FLM18 to draw attention of users to the Financial Literacy Month.
As tools, social media marketing hashtags can be very effective in improving the marketing campaigns. Not only do they expand your reach and make your content searchable, they also help your brand to engage your customers into conversations.
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