The Power of Hashtags and Brands

Using Hashtag research to craft your message

It’s hard to believe that hashtags are already 15 years old. Since it’s conception in the summer of 2007, hashtags have been disrupting an already disruptive social media network. Hashtags serve as a compartmentalization tool for social media content Things like articles, tweets, posts, blogs and even videos are all organized on their different platforms according to which hashtag is associated with a word.

For example:

Can’t wait to go see the final #movie in the #series!

#Movie and #series are both indexed in whichever platform you are posting on. It also becomes searchable along with other content sharing the hashtag.

This allows for ease-of-access. Hashtags have the power to liberate users’ thoughts into the public discourse and categorize for later viewings by fellow peers.

The introduction of hashtags changed the landscape of online communication. Connecting millions to different causes and being the tool of recent major movements. They have become a powerful resource for some but for others it remains an esoteric-like mystery.

A Hashtag can be considered a multi-tool too.  Not only does it categorize conversation, but it can craft it as well. Properly placed hashtags can result in having a larger impact on target audiences and engage them with your brand. Consider your small lemonade business and you’re sending out a tweet promoting your stand, which one seems more effective?

• Come support our local youth soccer club by buying freshly squeezed lemonade #lemonade #youthsoccer #suport
• #Support our local youth soccer, come buy our #freshsqueezed #lemonade
• #Support our local #youthsoccer, come buy our #freshsqueezedlemonade!

The tone of both ‘tweets’ are very different even though they are expressing the same message. The first example is cluttered, uses many more characters than necessary, and even repeats itself. Hashtags can also cause clutter. Be careful how many times you use it in a row. Not only is it unpleasant to look at but using more than 5 or six hashtags may bury your post.

Strategic placement of your hashtags is just as important as making sure you don’t over use them.  A healthy amount of 3 is good.  4 is pushing it and 5 or more seems like overkill. Save your characters with smart sentence structure. Keep your message tidy and manage the tone of your tweets and posts accordingly. You must carefully craft your messages to keep resonating with the heart of your audience.

Tapping resources like online influencers such as YouTube stars or celebrities is another way to gain insight into which hashtags are being used. Most influencers usually represent a few brands at a time. If you the influencer you are profiling for hashtags has too many brands, stick to the most popular ones. Audience members are usually in communication with Influencers and are expressing themselves with various hashtags for their attention.  Add those to your keyword research database for later crafting.

Of course, these are manual methods of crawling for hashtags and there are of course your typical set of keyword research tools. We recommend using paid service ones such as MO. If you are a small start-up that may not be within range yet. If that’s the case, then you can try tools like free version of the Google Webmaster tools.

Compiling a functional keyword database is an essential tool for the digital marketing team to use. Having it creates a foundation that will not only help craft your online narrative but help organize your thoughts and digital marketing strategy for the campaign. There is nothing worse than thinking you have no material to write about. There is always something to write about, always somebody to influence.

Many digital campaigns have gone nowhere fast because they haven’t done their target audience research or hashtag research. Having this database updated regularly will help digital marketing teams create fresh and relative content for your audience. The audience will also know when they are being pandered to, or when a message is contrived.  It’s not enough to simply do the keyword research and write a tweet or post.

Your tweet must be informative of your business.

Build your audience with these hashtag tips in mind. Be mindful in your research, diligent in your posting and craft authentic narratives. Hashtags are a small, useful and versatile tool. The powerhouse of the social media landscape. Learn to build messages and the followers will comes.

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