Hashtags

Hashtags make it easier for people to find and follow discussions about campaigns. They also let campaigners track their performance across social media. But generic hashtags like #food or #chocolate might get your update into a large conversation, using such broad hashtags is a waste of time: can you imagine how many posts contain #chocolate every minute? Managing the hashtag would be a nightmare. You’d spend weeks sorting through every instance of the hashtag to determine which mentions apply to you.

It’s worth the effort to come up with a unique hashtag that fits with your particular campaign. A good hashtag is memorable, unique and relevant to your campaign. Hashtags make it easier for campaigners to manage and maintain social media campaigns. Find the right tools that can effectively track, analyze and report how others are using your hashtag. Tools can help you launch, track and analyze hashtags across social networks. You can see what’s working and what’s not, how big your reach is. (Source)

Here’s some tips for coming up with your own hashtag:

1. Your hashtag should be original, specific and easy to understand
2. Don’t combine more than 3-4 words together
3. Try to write it in Title case to make it easy to understand
4. Reconsider your hashtag if it can read as something you don’t intend for it read as
5. Focus your hashtag: are you promoting your campaign, your organisation, a specific event?
6. You can be funny or daring, but don’t come up with a hashtag that your audience would resist using
   

Exercise: Select two different campaign hashtags and examine their impact. Try to extract some valuable information: how popular are the hashtags, how do they rank, how many times were they used? What made one more appealing than the other? How did they perform on different social media platforms? This can help you understand how hashtags function and how much they vary based on platform, target audience, scope, etc.