Have you ever found yourself hooked on a hashtag associated with a brand? You find yourself reciting it out of nowhere with no context. It is nothing but the effect of a hashtag campaign that picks on your mind, catching your attention.
These campaigns aim to advertise the brand with a unique hashtag so that people will start to remember the hashtag associated with that particular brand. Brands promote these campaigns everywhere, whether on social media, television, hoardings, etc.
Social media is one of the most dominating platforms for marketing in this era. That is why most brands want to build their strong presence on such platforms to enhance their visibility with audiences. They can create engaging content and publish it with relevant hashtags on any social media platform to increase their brand reach.
For example, #shareacoke by Coca-Cola or #letsdolunch by Dominos are popular hashtags of these respected brands.
Hashtags are also fun, as sometimes hashtag campaigns include contests and giveaways, which attract audience participation. People engage in and enjoy these contests, and it would also help the brands create awareness and conversions for their businesses.
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So, let’s get to know more about:
What Is A Hashtag Campaign?
A hashtag campaign is a marketing campaign that revolves around a specific hashtag that the branding team creates. The hashtag is designed based on the objectives of the campaign. Some primary objectives are launching a new product, creating brand awareness, promoting an upcoming event, or generating leads for the business.
This kind of campaign is now a widely used tactic to create awareness about a brand or a newly launched product and is sometimes done to increase engagement. If everything goes according to plan, this strategy can yield better results than an ordinary advertisement. With such campaigns, companies can not only increase followers or create brand awareness, but they can also endorse social issues that the brand supports.
Hashtags: – When You Should Use Them?
There are several times when brands use hashtags:
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Introducing a new product:
While launching a new product, a brand can create hype about the product by making a hashtag around it. It will help the product to get advertised effectively.
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Promotional events:
When a brand is about to do a promotional event, it can use hashtags to promote that event.
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Contests and giveaways:
Indulge people in your campaigns through hashtags by announcing contests and giveaways.
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Generation of leads:
This is the basic need of any campaign to generate valuable leads. Hashtag campaigns can help generate them effortlessly.
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Festival-specific campaigning:
There are times when brands promote themselves by involving a specific festival theme in their campaign.
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To drive engagement:
brands can use hashtags for likes, which can increase traffic on their site, as hashtags make content pieces more discoverable.
Objectives Of Hashtag Campaigns: –
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Generating leads:
This campaign can help a brand generate new leads that result from calls to action. The brand reaches new audiences, which helps to generate leads and increase sales. You will need hashtags that target a specific audience interested in your brand.
For generating such hashtags, you can use software like Socinator, which helps you design hashtags that target a specific audience.
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Brand awareness:
It can help increase brand awareness as hashtags can reach broader and newer audiences. Many new people will start recognizing the brand. Hashtag campaigning is a great way to create buzz about the brand.
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Engagement:
They can help increase engagement as these campaigns involve contests. People engage in these events and contests and increase the brand’s engagement. Any other kind of campaigning may not get the level of engagement this campaigning gets.
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Events:
Hashtags are used to promote upcoming product launches and events related to the brand. These events or launches need hype among the audience before they launch. Hashtags can help create this hype and can help the brand in numerous ways.
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Traffic:
Trending hashtags can help a brand drive traffic to its website and social media. It helps to create brand awareness and generate new leads. Trending hashtags are very handy, as new ones come almost every day. Traffic on a site can help you get more conversions; hence, the brand will get the benefits. You can also use tools to find trending hashtags on Twitter and Instagram to make your campaigns more effective.
How To Execute An Effective Hashtag Campaign: –
It can be executed effectively by the following –
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Determining the objectives:
The objective should be clear, whether it’s for lead generation, brand awareness, etc. It will help in designing the hashtag comfortably.
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Understanding the audience:
Your target audience should be clear, including their likes, dislikes, and demographics.
The audience will make the campaign successful, so understanding them is the key to gaining success.
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Relevance and effortlessness:
How to use hashtags? It is a common question when dealing with hashtag campaigns. The simple answer is that the hashtag should be relevant to the brand and so effortless that it is easy to remember and pronounce.
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Influencers:
collaborating with influencers will help you make the campaign more engaging. Ask them to create content using the hashtag; this will encourage their fans to make videos using the hashtags; hence, the hashtag will acquire more and more reach.
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User-generated content:
encourage the audience to participate and share content related to the campaign; this will help the campaign reach more people.
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Timing:
Effective campaigns are created by relating them to huge events, like making a campaign for your brand and connecting it to the upcoming World Cup or festivals, so the timing of events is crucial.
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Platform:
Choosing a platform that suits your campaign is crucial for the campaign’s effectiveness. For example, if your target audience is aged 17–30 and you run your campaign on a platform whose average user age is 33, then the campaign will not get the desired results.
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Cross-media:
Setting up the promotion on cross-media networks can ensure better results because different media have different audiences. All of them will combine to make the campaign successful.
Also Read
04 Tools To Find And Use Twitter Trending Hashtags
The Best Hashtag Generator For Instagram Marketing
Hashtag Campaigning Through Socinator:-
Socinator is a handy marketing software for social media. It is a social media automation tool that helps your brand streamline its social media accounts in one place. Utilize this tool to automate most of your social media activities on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
The USP of this tool is that it provides features that can help you schedule their posts in advance across all social media handles. It can also assist you in growing your social accounts without pressure by getting helpful insights to automate posts on every social media platform and save time.
If you want to create such a campaign, you can use Socinator to find and generate relevant hashtags. That can help you use the power of hashtags to increase your reach and get desirable results. Socinator’s hashtag finder tool can help you find great hashtags for your posts according to your niche. You can enter a particular keyword, and Socinator will find hashtags, which will help you boost discoverability.
Types Of Hashtag Campaign: –
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Regular branding campaigns:
Successful companies were present before the internet and social media; these companies created catchphrases, turned them into hashtags, and drove results through them. For example, Nike’s catchphrase, justdoit, has become #justdoit.
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Trend hijacking campaign:
social media revolves around trends, and it is a fact. Sometimes, brands use these trends to gain recognition. But you need to select only some specific trends, or it will damage the brand’s image, and the brand can be termed a clout chaser.
For example, in 2017, Pepsi released an advertisement in which they used the theme of Black Lives Matter; they were using a sensitive topic for their profit, and this commercial, as a result, faced heavy backlash.
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Announcement Hashtag campaign:
Brands use hashtags to announce events and new launches and keep the audience intact around them. Because of the hashtags used, people get attracted to the announcement.
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UGC showcase campaign:
User-generated content is a marketing strategy that the company uses to encourage its followers, customers, and even the general public to create and share content related to the brand. It is a great strategy, as the brands now have different audiences for every post done by the public.
Lays used the hashtag #dousaflavour for users to use and tell the brand and the world about their favorite Lays flavor through posts.
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Contests and giveaways:
Brands use hashtags to announce contests and giveaways; this type of campaign helps them grow as many people participate in contests and giveaways.
Conclusion: –
Hashtag campaigns are vital for brands and their social media presence, as we are witnessing the world of the internet and social media. If a brand wants to survive, it should be up there on social media, regularly posting and engaging with audiences to maintain its reputation. It should take the help of hashtags and hashtag campaigning, which, if executed properly, can ensure great results for the brand.
This campaigning can do wonders for a brand if you execute it by keeping all the points mentioned above in mind. Many brands have experienced this engagement through it. Also, by utilizing social media automation tool as a part of their marketing strategies, they can gain even more engagement and conversions for their business.
