The hashtag is a notion that many struggle with when starting out on Twitter. Words float around with this notorious symbol in front of it, but what does it all actually mean? The hashtag is there for a very good reason and that reason initiates the online strategy of all businesses; search optimisation. Search optimisation is basically the process of getting traffic to your social platforms to encourage brand awareness, brand loyalty or sales. While looking at your brand there may be certain key words that jump at you, for example ‘organic’, ‘fashion’, ‘local’ etc. You get the general gist. These are usually the words that people will automatically use when trying to insert a hashtag. That’s not a problem…if you feel a twitter user will insert these words into the Twitter search bar. More than likely they won’t though.
If you look outside of your own company though and start listening to the conversations on Twitter you will find yourself very aware of the hashtags people are using the most. The trending hashtags each day will appear neatly on the left side of your Twitter account homepage, letting you know what people are talking about. This is your lead to the hashtag you should be using. You need to take what your audience is interested in, get in on the conversation and allow them to discover your amazing product/service.
Leading on from here, I mentioned Twitter’s search function above. This is something you also need to use to see what people are talking about. Here is where you can use your own descriptive keywords (‘organic’, ‘local’ etc) to see what people are saying about similar products. They may be tweeting because they can’t find what you can offer them which opens up an sale opportunity straight away. The might be indicating a recurring problem which you can solve for them. It lets you listen to the conversations that your audience is already talking about.
There are many groups that operate on certain evenings of the week that allow you to chat with a local audience. #CorkHour is one of these for this area and allows businesses to talk about their brand in an environment where people are interested in what you have to say.
One instance where a hashtag created by you can be useful is for something like a competition. Getting users to follow your page and upload a picture with your product for example with a hashtag of your company/product name. However, unless you have an already popular brand, then this is only useful for you to search for entrants.
So in summary, you don’t always have to create your own hashtag. It will probably only get lost in the midst of more common keywords anyway. Use what has been generated by your audience, then you can also add your own. Also, get in on organised conversations that people go to regularly. You don’t have to create a hashtag, it’s already there for you to find and use. Now, happy tweeting!
Cherry Marketing Bandon 