Tag Archives: hashtag

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The pros and cons of rogue Twitter hashtags

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Twitter has quickly become the go-to marketing tool for many companies. From creating brand accounts, communicating news or changes in the company, to featuring company-generated hashtags in commercials and TV shows, it seems that everywhere we look we are being “gently nudged” towards the internet’s little blue bird. Unfortunately for marketers, relying heavily on social media can sometimes backfire because as it turns out, the public can have a mind of its own.

Twitter allows “promoted” posts, hashtags, and targeted ads, all utilized by marketers looking to get their brand names in front of individual users. Sometimes, though, individuals can use the promoted hashtags in ways that the company might not have expected. An example of this happened recently, when the #Obamaisnotsatan hashtag became popular after users noticed an interesting resemblance between the Satan character in the History Channel’s The Bible and our president.

According to an article by Adweek, “In the latest example of how marketers are using Twitter’s Promoted Tweets to jump on digital chatter as it happens, the AARP and Seamless… have gotten numerous ad impressions from consumers clicking on an #ObamaIsNotSatan hashtag. But this one has an unusually bizarre twist—even beyond the hashtag’s content—in that the marketers who purchased the ads probably only bid on the keyword ‘Obama’ rather than the randomness that is ‘ObamaIsNotSatan’…. And #ObamaIsNotSatan has sat atop Twitter’s trending topics section for much of Monday. Viewers who clicked on the hashtag have either seen a Social Security-focused ad from AARP or breezier copy about a soup-and-sandwich lunch from Seamless”.

This may seem like it would present a major setback to AARP and Seamless. Luckily, not all rogue hashtags are bad. This actually worked out well for AARP. The article continues, “It’s arguable that there’s nothing wrong with these ad impressions. That would especially seem to be the case for AARP, since many tweets around the hashtag have been pro-Obama. And because the org clearly wants the Democratic president to protect Social Security financing for its constituents, one could reasonably surmise that there’s positive association happening for the brand”.

Many top business executives believe in the idea that high risk equals high rewards. The unreliability, variability, and individuality associated with social media can make heavy usage, or any level of utilization, very risky in marketing plans. There are certainly examples of companies who made social media missteps, ultimately resulting in consumer backlash. And while it’s true that users ultimately determine the direction of the social media world, sometimes that surprising direction can benefit companies in ways they couldn’t even predict.

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Facebook to adopt Hashtag. All is right with the world.

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Praise to all that is holy in the social media world! Big news last week as rumors surfaced that Facebook is considering adopting the hashtag. I wrote a blog post a little while back about the power of the hashtag, made popular by Twitter and later adopted by Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+. Currently, Facebook is the only major social media platform that does not use hashtags (much to its users’ chagrin). But that’s all about to change.

According to an article by the Wall Street Journal, “Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag, one of Twitter’s most iconic markers, into its service by using the symbol as a way to group conversations, said people familiar with the matter. It is unclear how far along Facebook’s work on the hashtag is and the feature isn’t likely to be introduced imminently, these people said…. Facebook is testing whether to follow Twitter’s lead and allow users to click on a hashtag to pull up all posts about similar topics or events so it can quickly index conversations around trending topics and build those conversations up, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads. Instagram, which Facebook acquired last year, already uses hashtags, allowing users to sort photos by the symbol.”

While many industry experts speculate over how this development will affect the ongoing battle between the two social media titans, I’m more interested in the impact this will have for marketers.

THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! Ok, this probably won’t change everything. But it will make campaign integration in social media much easier for marketers. In my marketing classes at DU, whenever we wanted to use social media to engage with consumers through our campaigns we would develop a hashtag for Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest while having to develop a separate way to promote on Facebook. And that was annoying enough as a student. I can’t imagine how frustrating it’s been for experienced marketers to deal with Facebook’s “uniqueness”.

Adweek speculated on how this change will imact marketing, saying, “If Facebook does adopt the hashtag, it will bring the feature to its biggest platform yet and conceivably bring more marketers than are currently on Twitter (definitely more than are on Google+ or Instagram). That “allows the hashtag to play out on all channels and become a bigger part of all advertising—OOH, print, TV, etc.—which will encourage more consumer conversation around brands,” Tuff said, adding that hashtags could boost brands’ use of Facebook’s People Talk About This metrics by easing the reliance on post-tagging.”

Marketers of the world, rejoice!

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Harnessing the power of the hashtag

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Let’s face it: Social media is a HUGE part of our culture today. It’s not going away anytime soon. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and many others are fantastic ways for brands to engage with their consumers directly. But you already know that. The challenge in using social media is using effectively and authentically. Many different companies, from huge, multi-billion dollar brands all the way down to the one man start-ups and nonprofits, are trying to reach their consumers through social media because it is cheap, fast, and efficient. But are their efforts actually working?

One noticeable trend that highlights the power of social media is the increasing use of twitter “hashtags” in commercials. For those who have yet to join the twitterverse, “the # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages” (source). Marketers have realized that many consumers use Twitter to discuss and comment on cultural events and social trends. Big brands are now trying to utilize the power of Twitter to increase brand awareness, consumer insights, and word-of-mouth promotions because it’s a more organic, straightforward medium. The most efficient way to do this would be to create an official hashtag for consumers to use when they want to discuss a specific event, product, or ad. That way, the company can track consumer-generated content more quickly and cheaply than hiring a marketing research firm.

However, for this to work the consumers need to actually use the hashtag. Relying on consumers to do what you want can be tricky. I read an article about the effectiveness of official hashtags when used in Superbowl commercials this year. Yes, it’s another infographic but I promise there is writing too. The analysis found that when consumers wanted to talk about a specific Superbowl ad on Twitter, they were much more likely to use the brand name in a hashtag than the one featured in the ad. Therefore, commercials that promoted the brand name as the hashtag (Calvin Klein, Doritos) were used significantly more than the other hashtags promoting the specific brand. The popularity of the ad was also a factor in the use of its hashtag.

Social media can be a powerful tool for small companies and nonprofits such as Make A Hero to engage with potential donors and consumers. Or it can be a colossal waste of time. It all depends on how effectively you use it. Wandering blindly around social media, hoping consumers will care and, more importantly, share your content is like shouting into already crowded, noisy room. It just adds more noise that people block out. The trick is finding your target market on their social media platforms, identifying the way they use those platforms, and communicating with them one-on-one with content they will actually find intriguing and worth their time. Social media is our individual, personal outlet to show the world who we are. People use the platforms in many different ways for a variety of reasons. Tailoring your social media plan to accommodate that is the best way to ensure you are using it to your advantage. Otherwise, you will just keep shouting at people who don’t care.