Why random #hashtags fail in marketing campaigns
While marketers are increasingly looking for social media ready ideas, simply adding a hashtag to your campaign is not the answer argues Luke Ryan.
Ever wondered why no one is using your well-crafted hashtag for your new campaign? This might help.
Nearly every marketing campaign that goes out the door these days contains a hashtag, but hardly any of them have real purpose. It’s almost like marketers are being pressured into making their traditional marketing campaigns “more social”. But let’s be real, this is not getting the job done.
What I allude to will now be named #campaignhashtags, a word or phrase that belongs not necessarily to the brand, the product or to a larger organic conversation, but to the campaign itself. They usually garner very little social interaction, have no long term brand benefit and in some cases are not used in a way you desired them to be.
#campaignhashtags fail because they are completely forgetting where social begins – with the audience. Attempting to start a social conversation with a hashtag that is not linked to a larger social behaviour already taking place is like heading to the casino, putting all your chips on one number at the roulette table and expecting to win.
It is up to brands to understand the conversations already occurring and be relevant in this pre-existing context. The whole notion of social media marketing is there is already a conversation taking place, not to force one.
So where to start:
Listen to how your consumer communicates and interacts in social, what makes up their popular culture? Listen to what they are already saying about you and your competitors in social to give you an idea of what brand themes might resonate. The goal here is to understand how to integrate your brand with the pre-existing popular culture of your audience.
Instead of coming up with a big broadcast idea and then trying to socialise it (i.e creating a TVC then bolting on a hashtag), why not come up with a big social idea first and then broadcast it? By social idea I do not mean Facebook and Twitter, I mean an idea based on the understanding of social behaviour. Big ideas that people want to share, talk about, get involved in and belong to. A reason for the customer to communicate will naturally fit this strategy and your hashtag has real purpose
Define your purpose in social. #campaignhashtags come from brand-only thinking. Don’t just think about what the brand wants to talk about, focus also on what the audience wants to talk about. It is the middle ground between these two factors where you will find your value proposition for social.
This will help provide your brand purpose in social, help guide you on delivering your ambition and defines the value you bring to the audience. If you can’t define what value your social presence delivers to your consumer, you have no place hanging around.
Finally, keep it simple. For some reason we have an aversion to simple ideas. There is an underlying belief that simple means I haven’t worked on this hard enough, but in social, anything that is not simple more often than not falls short.
So now if you revisit your latest #campaignhashtag what does it communicate? Does it tap into an existing social behaviour already occurring within your audience? Does it provide any value at all?
If the answer is no, it is not social.
Luke Ryan is a strategist at We Are Social
Great advice. As a writer and a PR person, i see it from both sides. I hate irrelevant hashtags that will never be searched for organically. There’s a better chance of me searching for your brand name than the silly hashtag your marketing person has created.
The trick is to create a campaign that people want to share on social media – your hashtag isn’t going to do this!
The only time I’ve ever seen an effective hashtag campaign was #susanalbumparty
Sheer genius (albeit a mistake)!!
Great article, social is a growing and unpredictable beast, especially for some and the number of hashtag backfires is mounting!
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I agree Luke. The vast majority of #s in campaigns are there for the sake if there being one and not really achieving what the function is there for.
However, you could also say that it’s gone beyond the functional purpose as is now just a cultural norm as a prefix for a statement.
“hashtag awkward” etc
So, while many campaigns dont get their #s used by their audience – you could argue that it doesnt really matter – their doing it just to give a strap line a modern edge. which, although perhaps pointless, is relatively harmless.
thoughts?
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*they’re
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bang on, good piece Luke. i have seen billboards with more than 3 hastags on them, shameless adaptions of popular and genuine (ie user-generated, spontaneous, relevant) hastags in order to piggback, the list goes on… there have been a few good and memorable executions of the PR hashtag but far too many are contrived, unrealistic, plastic.
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Hashtags for hashtags sake are silly, though they do have a purpose beyond making a campaign ‘more social.’ They’re particularly effective for competitions and can help you differentiate between people who are just talking about your brand and people who are engaged and ‘brand champions’ The only people who will use your unique hashtags are those that really like you… or those that are hijacking your hashtag. But that’s a whole other article!
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Any examples?
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Bang on, Luke. It should revolve around the socialness of the audience, then extrapolate out. Not the other way around.
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#cuntdowntobeauty
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I think there is room for a tailored campaign hashtag but only when your campaign is on the right side of cool with your audience. If you don’t know if your event is cool enough to have one, there’s your answer, cut it.
On the sabotage hashtag front, who could forget #qantasluxury?!
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absolutely – the other thing that annoys me is seeing people putting hashtags all over their Facebook pages – a pointless exercise as Facebook hashtags don’t talk to Twitter and will never be picked up.
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Macca’s have been popping up in a few of my feeds of recent. Typically coming across in a condescending way, trying to harmonious their soulless agenda with Australian summertime .
McDonald’s: you sell fast food ffs and often the litter on the beach is from the mindless herd who you fleece, leaving your wrappers for others to pick up. Please stop it. Perhaps post up photo’s of a burger and create a hashtag #getfat or #heartattack.
The cheek of it?!
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