Many of us that are of a….well….certain age may very well wonder what this thing called a hashtag is. If you never joined the Twitter or Instagram revolution, you also may wonder what a hashtag is. What’s a Hashtag? Simply put, a Hashtag is the pound sign (#) followed by some word or phrase. For example, #BlueSky is a hashtag. Hashtags can contain any combination of letters and numbers, just no spaces, punctuation marks or special characters. So #TGIF is a valid hashtag, but #Thank God It’s Friday! is not. Also, there is no case sensitivity in hashtags, so if you are trying to distinguish separate words in your hashtag, try using capital letters. The hashtag #monicasblog is much harder to decipher than #MonicasBlog.
What’s a Hashtag???
Hashtags are a way of grouping and filtering out data on that great big thing we call the internet. Try it. Open another browser window (don’t close me!!!) and try entering something you think people might be talking about. For example, if you type in #RoyalWedding, you will see posts that people tweeted about Will and Kate’s wedding or images that were tagged from the wedding. Try entering #Undateable. NBC is using hashtags to build awareness of their programming.
Power of Hashtags
I can hear you now. Great, that was a waste of a minute of my reading time. Thanks for that explanation but why do I care about that? Well, if you own a business or market a business, you SHOULD care. And here’s why. Not only are hashtags a way of grouping and filtering data on the internet, but they are also a way of building brand awareness. For example, Proctor and Gamble created a campaign called Thank You Mom back in 2012 in the days leading up to the 2012 Olympics that had commercials with professional atheletes thanking their mothers for all they had done to get them where they were. This campaign was launched with the hashtag #ThankYouMom. This has been one of the most successful campaigns of all time, and is still in effect now. Every time someone tweets #ThankYouMom, tags a picture with #ThankYouMom, posts to Facebook with #ThankYouMom, or any other number of venues, people are sharing and raising brand awareness for Proctor and Gamble.
Create a corporate hashtag for your company and include it on your marketing campaigns, website, Facebook page, Tweets, and everywhere you want to raise your brand awareness. Just another way of making technology work for you. If you need assistance with how to make technology work for you, contact us at ML Stuckey Consulting. Let us help you plan, manage, and develop your Information Technology needs.
