It’s clear to any marketing pro, PR pro, or even a small business owner, that having a widespread social media presence is foundational to brand success. However, this success hinges upon 1) a good understanding of the ins and outs of social media, and 2) using this understanding as a launching pad to go above and beyond on social media to represent your brand.
There is one element of brand success on social media that is often neglected, though, which is what I’d like to talk about: that is, the use of hashtags.
Let’s start from the top, assuming that you have little or even no understanding of what hashtags are and their purpose on Twitter (where they started). Hashtags are placed prior to key words or phrases that connect and resonate with your message and brand. Users can then look up hashtags that are relevant or interest them to find people and content to interact with. For example, if you are a small business owner, tack on the hashtag #SmallBiz at the end of a tweet and people who are interested in small businesses will look up the hashtag and ultimately may be routed to your profile.
There are two key types of hashtags that should always be incorporated into your Twitter content, and on other social media sites to a smaller degree. These are:
1) Popular and/or trending hashtags
Every brand should create a list of certain trending or popular hashtags (such as the one just mentioned) that they can both include in their tweets and look up so they can find people to follow and tweets to interact with. These hashtags should be relevant to your brand, but also already have a well-established presence on social media. Use hashtags for your industry/career, i.e. #PR or #WomenInBiz, and hashtags that represent your product offerings, i.e. #OrganicBeauty or #Tech.
Additionally, look for popular hashtags to participate in trending conversations and Twitter chats that have the potential to pertain to your brand. You can then contribute valuable knowledge to these conversations to establish yourself and your brand as an expert in a given field.
2) Uniquely thought-up, brand-specific hashtags
This type of hashtag is essential to branding success, yet unfortunately many people overlook this.
As the social media-savvy individual will know, social media is the outlet in which you brand, your company and/or products can utilize to develop a unique, distinctive, and likeable voice. You want to create a voice that will simultaneously stand out and break through the clutter, yet also one that will blend into social media’s trending landscape.
The creation of unique hashtags is vital for maintaining this balance. While users are more likely to find you initially due to your use of popular hashtags, they will continue following your content through your use of brand-specific techniques and hashtags.
I hope these tips will help you to have branding success! Now get tweeting 🙂
