Use Hashtags Like An Influencer

What is a campaign hashtag?

The term campaign hashtag means any hashtag you use to bring attention to your business and used for the length of a certain promotion or event. As an example, if you wanted to call attention to a grand opening of a new subdivision you’ve listed or if you are collaborating with a lender on a certain type of loan, you could use a campaign hashtag.

Examples of campaign hashtags would include:

• #ALSIceBucketChallenge
• #ShareACoke
• #CollegeIn5Words
• #SFBatKid

The examples above were used to call attention to a cause for a specific period of time and when the promotion was over, the hashtag was no longer (popularly) used.

A brand hashtag would be one that you could use at any time and it would tie back to your business, but not necessarily to any specific event or promotion, you might be involved in.

Where Do You Go To Create A Hashtag?

To all of you that have spent a fortune over the years on domain names and web hosting, I have really good news. There’s no charge anywhere to have or use a hashtag. Earth shattering info, right?

You think of a hashtag and you use it. That’s it. Sounds simple, but allow me to make it complicated 🤭.

To make a hashtag effective for any campaign, you need to keep a few things in mind:

• When you create a hashtag for an event or specific marketing campaign, you want to make it unique, or as unique as possible. Make a list of hashtags that come to mind.

• Search for each hashtag on Tagboard.com or go to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook and search there. Make sure it hasn’t been used for something you wouldn’t want your business to be associated with.

• Once you’ve decided on the hashtag, look at it closely and figure out how many ways it’s likely to be misspelled. Often if you have a number in it, people will say it, but forget if it’s spelled out or numeric when they try and use it. If you use the number one, consider if it could be mistaken for a lowercase l. Try to make your hashtag as easy to spell and understand as possible.

• Even though you may have considered using your campaign hashtag on only one specific
  social media platform, your audience may very well start using it on several platforms.

• While a long hashtag is usually not a good idea due to the probability of misspellings, it’s also not a good idea to use on Twitter, where there’s a 280 character limit per tweet.

• Hashtags on Instagram should usually be more specific to the photo or video it’s associated with, while Twitter hashtags are more conversational. Does your hashtag work both ways?

• Hashtag campaigns often offer a prize of some kind. Think about what your target audience would be excited enough about winning that they would spend the necessary time to participate.

• Be sure to have a webpage, or a Facebook post or Instagram post that spells out the details of what you expect from the participant, what they should expect from you, how you choose a winner, how they’ll be notified when they win, and how and when they’ll get their prize. Sounds complicated but a quick Google search will turn up lots of companies
  that provide contest or sweepstakes type of campaign services.

The Simple How-To’s

Conferences & Networking

Whether you’re attending this year’s real estate conference in another state or you’re going to the Chamber’s annual BBQ, find out what hashtags they plan to use as soon as you can. You’ll want to start making mention of it at least a couple of weeks ahead of time.

Out of the Area Events

• Start posting things 2 – 4 weeks prior to the event about how excited you are to be attending
• Gradually incorporate wanting to find out if there will be any meetups with others attending the same event
• Search for the event hashtag prior to each time you post and see if anyone else has posted anything using that hashtag that you could respond to
• Post when you arrive and any highlights of the event
• Always be checking Tagboard.com to quickly see if there are any conversations
  you could be joining around this hashtag

Local Events

When you head out to the Chamber’s annual BBQ or a local club’s fundraiser, have their hashtags ready.

This is a great time to direct your posts directly to past customers and customers you’d like to have in the future. Let them know of the event, or ask them if they plan on attending. Whatever works for your personality.

The idea is to make direct contact with them in a non-salsey way and using that hashtag will get you in front of a lot of other potential customers too.

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