COM 656 3-2 Short Paper
Abstract
A paper reflecting on the importance of Twitter hashtags, which use has been appropriated by other social media platforms as well. This paper discusses the benefits of appropriate use to both small and large businesses, and provides a list of best practices of which PR professionals engaging in the use of hashtags as part of their marketing strategy should remain cognizant.
Keywords: hashtags, PR strategy, marketing strategy, cross-platform
A hashtag is a crucial feature instigated by Twitter that allows users to make some measure of sense out of the often chaotic, disparate environment that this particular social media platform can become. It consists of a hash (“#”) followed by a keyword or a short phrase that indicates a topic or a category to which the tweet it is attached references (Sprung, 2013)… at least, that is the way it is supposed to work. Though a trend started by Twitter, it is no longer limited to just that platform: users on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ all now use hashtags; anecdotally speaking, they seem increasingly to appear on text messages and emails as well, which use is somewhat incongruous with the original purpose of the hashtag (i.e., to categorize multiple messages according to purpose, topic, and/or context in order to render them easily visible to interested parties) until one considers that one use of the hashtag is to lend comedic flavor to a message (Prattler, 2013), so perhaps it is not too surprising that enterprising—and creative—users in the environment would find ways to extrapolate social media tools to one-on-one communications as well.
Discussion
The Importance of Hashtags
Hashtags are of prime importance to both small and large businesses. For small businesses, hashtags that are more mainstream and already have an audience following can significantly boost visibility to tweets that may otherwise have gone unnoticed as a result of the lack of business presence (Constant Contact, n.d.).
An example is Easter Seals UCP, the Easter Seals chapter that serves North Carolina and Virginia. Though Easter Seals is relatively well known in the disability industry (the organization has a nationwide presence, and also operates in Canada, according to their coverage map: http://www.easterseals.com/connect-locally/), it is less well known outside the disability market. Easter Seals UCP has a presence on Twitter, and recently has used the following hashtags to boost its visibility in complementary but unrelated markets: #SNAP to bring attention to lower-income families who live with disability, #NationalBikeToWorkDay to support general health awareness, #FosterCareMonth to piggy-back onto the general fostering community and industry as a way to support its own foster care program, #mothersday2018 to acknowledge to parents of children with disability, and #NationalKidsandPetDay to promote therapy animals for the disabled. As can be seen, none of these hashtags relate directly to Easter Seals as an organization, but by cleverly leveraging their use, Easter Seals brings relevant attention to themselves. As Easter Seals is a non-profit agency, it is reasonable to assume that increased visibility results in a larger number of donations.
Sprung (2013) describes the reverse phenomenon, i.e., a large company’s use of hashtags to focus the larger variety to a narrower audience, with the example of Verizon Wireless: the rather general hashtags #verizon and #VZW are in prolific use, appearing in everything from customer complaints to requests for wireless carrier recommendations to sponsored events and advertising. Verizon uses now hashtags deliberately to single out certain target audiences and niches to ensure that those audiences receive messaging tailored specifically to them. Sprung uses the examples of #VZWINNOVATE to focus exclusively on Verizon’s support of Black History Month, targeting this particular minority market to boost contextual visibility in that market.
It is therefore crucial for PR professionals to engage in the prolific but intelligent use of hashtags in their social media marketing: for businesses of all sizes, hashtags provide a powerful tool with which to target tailored messaging to specific audiences (as exemplified Verizon above) as well as to leverage other markets to capture greater visibility therein (as exemplified by Easter Seals’s use of complementary hashtags). Regardless of the specific PR strategy employed, hashtags provide an avenue for leverage and visibility. In an age in which quality content garners more (lucrative) attention than a simple sales pitch and ‘90s’ era advertising (Scott, 2015), hashtags are a way to get that quality content out to various markets.
Best Practices
There are a number of best practices that should be employed in the PR use of hashtags:
- A hashtag should be short and easy to remember (Sprung, 2013). There are presently a multitude of hashtags in use across all social media platforms, and given the speed at which Twitter particularly runs, longer hashtags or those that are harder to spell will likely result in misspellings that will push users in unintended directions, which defeats the purpose.
- A hashtag, once defined or appropriated for use in a PR campaign or as a PR strategy, should then be used on other social media platforms (Sprung, 2013) as well to tie the whole campaign or strategy together, to boost visibility for users of each platform and to expose said users to features and messaging on complementary platforms.
- Validate the hashtag before using it: Prattler (2013) and Sprung (2013) both caution their audience against using a hashtag before having searched for it on Twitter to ensure that it is not being or has not been used in a manner that would be detrimental to the organization purporting to use it now. Sprung goes further by providing the example of how Entenmann’s, a baked goods manufacturer, made this mistake by using the hashtag #notguilty, presumably to refer to the nutrition of their products… while others were simultaneously using the same hashtag to discuss a a murder trial verdict. The disparity likely impacted Entenmann’s brand and PR strategy negatively as a result.
Conclusion
With idiomatic phrases like “going viral” having entered the common lexicon, that hashtags are a crucial component of any organization’s PR strategy in the current social media climate is beyond debate. As such, it is increasingly crucial to employ a well-though-out, well rehearsed and well researched strategy in said use, as the speed with which social media blunders can proliferate renders an organization unable to retract an offending tweet or post; once a message reflecting negatively on an organization has been posted, even if it is taken down quickly, still exists on the web, and can and will be found by those interested in reacting to or benefiting from said messaging. It is incumbent, therefore, on the PR professionals implementing the strategy to ensure that hashtags are relevant, researched, and used appropriately in order to provide positive visibility to their organization and to enhance its reputation and brand, and avoid negative visibility that may damage or tarnish the same.
References
Constant Contact. (n.d.). Why Are Hashtags So Darn Important? Retrieved from Constant Contact: https://blogs.constantcontact.com/are-hashtags-important/#
Prattler, A. (2013, October 22). How to Use Twitter Hashtags to Get Noticed. Retrieved from SocialMediaTodat: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-use-twitter-hashtags-get-noticed
Scott, D. M. (2015). The New Rules of Marketing & PR (Vol. 5th Edition). Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.A.: John Wiley & Sons.
Sprung, R. (2013, February 21). How to Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Marketing. Retrieved from SocialMedia Examiner: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/hashtags/