WHETHER it’s a certain major sporting event or a glittering gala — if you’re thinking of jumping on the bandwagon, should you think again?
Brands could be tempted to discuss the event on their social media pages, and perhaps drop a sneaky hashtag to gain some extra coverage.
But some key phrases have been trademarked — but why?
The move has been made to protect official sponsors — to allow non-sponsors to piggyback on the exposure through hashtags would undermine the importance of sponsorship.
As brands try to navigate the social media minefield, we – at Mediaworks – thought we’d share some tips for hashtagging.
Keep them short
Keeping hashtags short is advised, especially when you’re dealing with Twitter’s 140-character limit. Longer hashtags are more difficult to read too, so keep it short and sweet.
Don’t overuse them
Believe it or not, you can use too many hashtags. Hashtagging every word in your post will disengage your users and give an air of desperation to your posts. Set yourself a limit of two or three relevant hashtags per post
Make them relevant
Nothing makes your brand appear further off the mark than including an irrelevant trending hashtag in a post just to increase its visibility.
Users appreciate genuine brands that stick to their image. Users aren’t stupid and they’ll realise that your hashtags are to purely benefit your brand’s visibility, rather than make a valuable contribution to the conversation.
Always read your hashtags before you post!
Sounds obvious? You’ll be amazed how many hashtags have gone wayward. For example, when Margaret Thatcher died, the hashtag #nowthatchersdead started trending. Although it was intended to read ‘now Thatcher’s dead’, the hashtag actually started a rumour that the singer, Cher, had died.
The fix? Capitalise each word in a hashtag to avoid blunders like this.
It makes your hashtags easier to read and underlines exactly what you’re trying to convey.
This advice has been provided by creative search agency, Mediaworks.
