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#HowToUseHashtags

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Alyssa Vincent in blog, Social Media 2 Comments

As a social media junkie, two of the most common questions I get asked are “What’s a hashtag” and “How do I create/use hashtags.” Knowing how to use a hashtag is essential to any social media marketing strategy, but despite its debut on Twitter more than three years ago, many people still don’t know what a hashtag is.

Hashtags are keywords or short phrases, written without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of them. The title of this post, #HowToUseHashtags, is an example of a hashtag. Believe it or not, that’s all there really is to creating a hashtag and there’s no special software required.

A hashtag has a variety of uses, but its primary purpose on Twitter and Google+ is to make the term searchable. What I mean by that is the hashtag creates a link that will take you to the search results of everybody else who has used that hashtag.

Hashtag Uses

There are a number of ways you can utilize hashtags, and the tactics are different for each use. Here are a few of the most popular uses for hashtags:

Keywords

Twitter and Google have a lot in common in that both require you to optimize your content to appear in their search results. Hashtags are simply Twitter’s SEO tactic of choice.

Use keyword hashtags to describe the content you are tweeting. Using popular keywords in your industry will yield the most followers.

For example, if you are crafting a tweet about Michael Phelps and the Olympics, you might consider using the hashtags #Olympics, #London2012, #Swimming and #TeamUSA.

City and state names can be excellent hashtag keywords to use when the tweet is specific to a geographic location. It’s not uncommon to see local media outlets use them when tweeting about news.

Tips

Celeb Boutique and Kenneth Cole

Tools
• If you’re not sure which hashtags are popular in your industry, use Mentionmapp. This app will tell you which hashtags are used the most by the users you mention. You can then click on other users to see which hashtags their network is using and so on.
• Trendsmap is a great tool for viewing all trending hashtags at a glance via location.

Events/Chats

Hashtags are great for sparking and facilitating conversation. Whether you want to see what people are saying about an event you’re hosting or chat with like-minded people, hashtags are a great avenue for doing so.

If you’re hosting an event, come up with an easy hashtag and include it on all event promotional material. Encourage participants to use the hashtag when tweeting about the event. Now, whenever anybody clicks on or searches for the hashtag in Twitter’s search engine, they will see the conversation and buzz surrounding the event.

There are also Twitter hashtags centered around networking with people who have similar interests. These Twitter chats are usually held at the same time every week or month. There is usually a moderator who asks questions, and people respond to the questions with the hashtag. Individuals and businesses can moderate and participate in Twitter chats.

There’s a chat out there for everybody’s interests. #Makeupchat, #musicbiz, #blogchat and #SmallBizChat are all examples of chats that are hosted on a regular basis.

Tips

Twitter chat schedule

Tools
• If you find it hard to keep up with the conversation, use TweetChat. It organizes the conversation in a way that’s easy to follow and allows you to set the reload speed.

Contests/Promotions

Social media contests are a great way to get your name in front of people and to gain fans. Facebook is one of the most popular social networks for giveaways, but it is also one of the most restrictive. Twitter, however, has very few guidelines when it comes to running a contest, which makes hashtags are the perfect tool for organizing and promoting contests.

A Twitter contest should be simple. A great example of a simple Twitter contest is “tweet why you want [insert prize here] using #hashtag and we’ll select one lucky winner at the end of the day.” It’s a simple method, but it leaves a lot of room for promotion.

Tips

Irony/Fun

Not all hashtags have to be serious. In fact, many of the most popular ones started out as a humorous way to express feelings. A few examples of these are: #ThatAwkardMomentWhen, #FirstWorldProblems and #MyLifeIsAverage. Don’t be afraid to mix it up a little and use–or create your own–fun hashtags in your social media marketing plan.

Hashtags are what make Twitter fun. They’re great for networking and getting your voice in front of an audience, they allow you to keep in touch with your favorite businesses and celebrities, and they allow you to express how you’re feeling.

How Some Brands Botch it in 140 Characters or Less

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Taylor Donohoo in blog 3 Comments

Update: I wrote this post just days ago, but clearly not enough organizations are paying attention. Without taking time to properly research and react, brands head straight to Twitter and make serious mistakes. The thing is they have no one to blame but themselves. Just today, several companies are revealing their lack of due diligence.

My most recent discovery of terrible tweeting comes from @CelebBoutique. The company is clueless in its attempt to jump on Twitter’s current trending topic #Aurora. It is likely you are well-informed and aware that this trend is centered on the most recent tragedy in Colorado. Way to be classless Celeb Boutique.

Just as watching House doesn’t make you a doctor, having a social media account doesn’t make you an expert. While some people can truly take charge of social media and get an A++, others are out there making mistakes that cause the rest of us to think “seriously?”

Take a look at these four companies that blew it for their brand using Twitter.

A Fashion Designer With Poor Taste

During the revolutionary riots in Egypt, people around the world were using Twitter to discuss the uproar. While some people were worried about what this meant for Cairo, the fashion designer Kenneth Cole took the time to make it an inappropriate promotion. Insensitivity, much?

An Enraged Employee

After their big Super Bowl ad called “Imported from Detroit,” post-bankruptcy Chrysler was still interested in showcasing hometown pride. Instead of your typical tweet about Motor City, a disgruntled employee took creative (and catastrophic) liberty. Chrysler’s official Twitter account said: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to [explicit] drive.” The employee got the boot and the company offered a public apology.

A Clueless Company

A lot of companies see trending topics and want to be in on it. However, Entenmanns didn’t do any research in the trending hashtag ‘notguilty’ before jumping on the band wagon. The hashtag was centered around the Casey Anthony verdict, but the brand didn’t even take the time to figure that out.

A Terrible Typo

Twitter is an excellent outlet for breaking news. However, in the haste of posting about a breaking story ABC 7 News fell victim to the unfortunate proximity of the letters ‘o’ and ‘i’ when attempting to say a suspect shot himself.

In three out of four of these crazy cases, it would have paid off to simply think before tweeting. Instead, these organizations had to worry about damage control.

To be honest, there were plenty of Twitter tumbles to showcase here, and I’d love for anyone who is up for it to add their favorite.

American Express Makes Splash on Social Media Scene by Making Spending a Social Experience

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Kellie Englehardt in blog 1 Comment

American Express could be called a relative newcomer to the social media scene, making its first appearance on Twitter in 2009. But being a late comer to the party hasn’t held the company back from making a grand entrance with big strategies and programs to back them up.

The credit card company currently has almost 2.5 million Facebook fans and just over half a million Twitter followers under the @AmericanExpress account. So what can we learn about social media from a company that went from zero just a couple years ago to being called a “real winner” by Advertising Age? Plenty.

It’s true, American Express already had myriads of passionate fans out there from the customer service focused line of credit cards and the variety of other company offerings. The goal was to bring that passion online and to the social networks to get people talking and sharing their stories on their preferred social network. They are not only on Facebook and Twitter, but also YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare and even the rewards system in Zynga’s FarmVille game.

The Small Business Saturday campaign and the Sync social spending program are among the biggest strategies that have helped them gain the online following they desired.

“Our mission is to be everywhere our Cardmembers and merchants are,” said Leslie Berland, senior vice president of digital partnerships and development for American Express. “To engage with them, service them, deliver unique value that’s shareable and create seamless digital experiences that surprise and delight.”

The Small Business Saturday Facebook page actually rivals the company’s main page with 2.8 million fans. The initiative encouraged consumers to support small businesses by shopping at them between the biggest shopping days of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The company offered a credit in return for spending a minimum amount at a qualifying small business. The company started an online movement in support of small business with almost 195,000 tweets mentioning the initiative.

The company is continuing to support small businesses and announced earlier this week that they were giving away a $25,000 makeover to five small businesses. American Express has taken the social media spotlight away from a “me, me, me” focus and is helping small businesses that can really use their support. It’s a win-win strategy.

The key is both consumers and merchants are engaging with the brand on a very tangible level.

Who doesn’t love getting a bargain on something they were already planning on buying? The Sync program was first launched last summer on Foursquare and then Facebook with the “Link, Like, Love” campaign. Earlier this year they finally brought the program to Twitter.

When you link your American Express account with the various social media sites the savings can be big. They have established partnerships with companies like Best Buy, Whole Foods and McDonald’s. For example, one current offering is if you tweet #AmexProFlowers you could get 20 percent off a purchase of $29.99 or more from ProFlowers.com when you have synced your American Express card with your Twitter account.

Here’s a video explaining it in more detail:

Using smart strategies in their social media campaign has helped the company reach important business goals including raising brand awareness, increasing sales and continuing to build customer loyalty.

Twitter Tip from the NBA

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Pat Parkinson in blog 3 Comments

The NBA is now creating Twitter-themed T-shirts for its biggest stars that include the players' Twitter handles. New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin is one of the players represented in the new marketing campaign. Photo courtesy of NBA.com

Among professional athletes, NBA players were some of the first to have prominent profiles on Twitter. Now the league is embracing that passion for social media by producing T-shirts with players’ Twitter handles instead of their last names above the jersey numbers printed on the back.

Jeremy Lin, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul are now @JLin7, @carmeloanthony and @CP3.

An NBA spokeswoman told Mashable the league is “always looking at new ways to connect with fans.”

“As the top sports league on Twitter with more than 4.5 million followers on @NBA and more than 350 NBA players active on the site, we thought this would be a great way to engage with our fans,” said Lisa Pilken, vice president of licensing for the National Basketball Association.

The move also provided a great lesson for businesses and marketers struggling to increase their reach on Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites.

“If you’re seeing the NBA and you’re seeing Hollywood and you’re seeing television shows taking it this seriously, you know it’s going to be around,” said Darin “Doc” Berntson, social media manager for SEO.com. “There is no reason why the small guy can’t do it too.”

Having a strong social media marketing strategy is critical for many online public relations campaigns. Here are seven simple tips for reaching more people on Twitter and making it easy for them to find and follow your business:

1. Choose your Twitter handle carefully

You may change your Twitter handle (mine is @patrparkinson) at any point. Because the handle is how people identify you on Twitter, the label should be descriptive and consistent with names used on your other social media profiles like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Consider including the location of your business and use your real name if possible. For example, several Associated Press journalists I follow on Twitter have handles that include @jongambrellAP and @dbrysonAP.

I’m also a big Lollapalooza fan, have been since watching Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Ministry play on the tour in 1992. Since the festival now occurs in three different countries, organizers make it easy to follow along with Twitter handles like @Lollapalooza (U.S.) @LollapaloozaCL (Chile) and @LollapaloozaBR for the Brazilian leg of the fest.

2. Print your Twitter handle on your business cards

Next time you meet a new contact at a networking event save them the effort of having to ask “what is your Twitter handle?”

Including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn information on your business cards is important for any company trying to expand its reach through social media. Of course provide the company’s handle for branding purposes, but include your personal Twitter handle as well.

3. Email signatures should have links to social media

Make it easy for people to follow you on Twitter by providing your Twitter handle, the URL and a link to your Twitter account with the digital signature at the bottom of your emails.

Include personal and business Twitter handles along with links to the company’s Facebook page and LinkedIn account.

4. Proposals, brochures and presentations

From Powerpoint slides to infographics, sales proposals to brochures, today your Twitter information should be part of all of these.

“If it’s anything you would have made before that had your name on it, then include your Twitter handle,” Berntson advised.

5. Blog posts, bios and articles

Include links to all your social media profiles whenever you publish a blog post, podcast, webinar or any content produced for the Web.

I love bios and I read them obsessively. If I am even halfway interested in what was written I will often follow the author if they include an easy path to their Twitter profile. It’s important to use prominent icons to help identify social media buttons.

Have new landing pages on your website? Each should have your Twitter handle and a link to your profile so new followers may easily join the discussion.

6. Banners and advertising

For that next trade show create a banner for your company’s booth with information about your social media profiles. Have a computer available at events and provide incentives for people to sign in to Twitter and follow you right on the spot.

Twitter handles should also be part of all online advertising, display ads and broadcast promotions.

7. Use social media URLS

Whenever you include your social media profiles with marketing materials like business cards, brochures, banners, display ads or presentations, include your Twitter handle along with URLs (https://twitter.com/#!/patrparkinson) for your various social media accounts.

In the same way the email replaced fax machines and the postman, social media now threatens the existence of email. While your company’s website is still your marketing hub online, social media is slowly becoming the go-to way for companies to find new customers.

But remember, there is a reason it’s called “social” media. Even an NBA player’s Twitter handle printed above their jersey number will only go so far. The key is engaging those followers once they have started receiving your Tweets, otherwise your follower numbers will dwindle just as quickly as they spiked.

I’d love to hear from you. Where is the most creative place a company has provided its Twitter handle?

Social Media Marketing Etiquette

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Taylor Donohoo in blog 4 Comments

Talking on the phone with a passenger in the car is annoying and inconsiderate. Men should walk street-side of the sidewalk so women can safely side walk. Secondhand smoke kills, too. The common thread here is etiquette. Everyday etiquette evolves, which is why new recommendations for social graces are continually introduced. While it is common knowledge that it is impolite to chomp gum during a business meeting, some people new and old to social media remain clueless on proper conduct in the social media sphere.

Chris Brogan, a successful business man and author, outlined a number of do’s and don’ts with regards to social media that I found beneficial for the whole lot of us. Now, mind your manners.

Keep Conversation Classy

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Promotion Tips

Be Careful With Content

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For the record, social media etiquette always has exceptions. When it comes to social media marketing, there are no absolutes, and some people might disagree about what is considerate. I’m curious to learn what you believe to be polite social media behaviors.

How to Avoid Social Media Fails, Foibles, and Fiascoes

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Allison Ulrich in blog 2 Comments

Social media has become a main source for communication and information. According to AGBeat, nearly half of all Americans are now members of at least one social network, which is double the proportion from just two years ago! Out of all American adults 79% use the internet and 47% use at least one social media site. With these numbers continually on the rise, businesses need to be aware of how to avoid social media fails, foibles, and fiascoes.

One sure way to help avoid a social media disaster is to listen to what consumers are saying. This allows you to analyze consumer conversation to study their online behavior. As you begin to identify consumer behavior, you can observe the conversation to understand their wants and desires. This opens the door to what topics people are interested in and their perceptions. Strategies can be developed, specific for consumers by observing patterns and behaviors.

Listening also allows you to observe any negative feelings consumers may have concerning your brand or industry. When consumers don’t agree or dislike an action performed by your business, you can bet it will be shared online. As a business that listens, address these concerns online to confirm that positive actions will be taken and adjustments will be made.

A second technique to help you avoid a social media failure is to come up with a comprehensive strategy that considers what you want to achieve once you’ve engaged your audience. Edwin Huertas, an Internet marketing experts who actually gave a lecture on social media fails, foibles, and fiascoes, suggests companies anticipate all possible scenarios (especially unfavorable ones) in order to prevent a catastrophe.

We can actually learn from the most recent social media marketing disaster from McDonald’s. The company came up with great new hashtag for Twitter to encourage people to share their positive experiences with their products. It didn’t take too long for people who were unhappy with McDonald’s to abuse the hashtag and spread personal horror stories about their experiences with the food chain. Unfortunately, the company did not have a backup plan for damage control and the campaign spiraled downward. According to Huertas, “If you know enough and implement a good campaign, make sure you monitor it carefully. Making the right adjustments to your campaign (at the right time) can make the difference between success and failure.”

Belieb in the Power of Social Media

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Alyssa Vincent in blog 3 Comments

Whether you love him or hate him, you have to give him props. Justin Bieber is a marketing wizard, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to slow down anytime soon. Ever since his first album, My World, came out in 2009, the kid has been unstoppable.

You may be asking yourself at this point “How is this 17 year old kid a marketing genius?” I’ll tell you why: it’s because he knows how to promote and brand himself.

Bieber Social Media Fever

Justin Bieber is the direct byproduct of social media marketing done right, and we can all learn something from his efforts. Bieber rose to fame after his mother taped and posted videos of him singing on YouTube. It caught the attention of the right people and he was signed to a major record label in 2008.

Bieber has also engaged his fans over Twitter. When he was just starting out, he would tweet about his shows and appearances to spread the word. In the beginning only about 10 girls would show up, but towards the end, entire malls would have to be shut down due to safety concerns.

Since then Bieber’s Twitter account has grown to more than 17 million followers (only Lady Gaga has more) and he continues to engage them by answering questions and retweeting comments. In fact, Bieber’s social media marketing strategy has been so effective he was the number one trending topic of 2011.

Baby, Baby, Braaanding

Bieber is amazing when it comes to branding himself as a teen heart-throb. He knows exactly who his target audience is and is taking no prisoners.

Who else has their own Barbie, singing toothbrush, dental floss, piñata, nail polish, headphones, and high-end perfume?

Nobody (that I know of anyway).

The boy bands of the ‘90s only wish that they had the brand development magic that Justin Bieber has today. You’ve gotta hand it to the kid—he knows he just doesn’t appeal to teenage boys as much as he might like it to. So he plasters his face and name on products that appeal to pre-teen girls, because that’s his target market.

Not only does he have his picture plastered on every product you can imagine, but he has his own motion picture, Never Say Never, which grossed more than $29 million its opening weekend. Bieber’s documentary grossed more than Michael Jackson’s This Is It opening weekend (music aficionados are probably cringing right about now).

Sesame Street has also created Justin Bieber puppet and music video spoof of his Never Say Never song. You know you’ve sealed your fate in pop culture history when the longest running children’s television program creates a character in your image.

What We Can Learn from Bieber

Persistence and investing time into your customers pays off. Bieber understood something that a lot of professionals don’t, that you need to turn your customers into fans in order to be successful. It is important for businesses to integrate customer engagement into their social media marketing strategy if they want to turn their customers into fans for life. If Justin Bieber can engage more than 17 million fans, your business should be able to handle it as well.

Bieber can also teach us about focusing our brand development efforts. Bieber’s not going to be releasing his own brand of Axe body spray anytime soon because he realizes that that’s not his target market. As much as we’d all like to think that everybody is our target market, the fact of the matter is they’re not. The sooner businesses realize this, the more successful they will be.

Whether you want to admit it or not, we could all take a few pointers from Justin Bieber. For tips on brand development strategies, read this post.

The Latest Social Media Marketing Challenge

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Thomas Watkins in blog 5 Comments

In 2012, your social media marketing strategy is going to be more important than ever before. The responsiveness of consumers to traditional advertising continues to dwindle, and consumers continue to rely on their friends for information on the best products and services. In such an environment, social media easily becomes one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses.

Change Is Coming: Google+ and Personalized Searches

No matter what you were doing or how well you were doing it, you’ll need to make some changes to your social media strategy in 2012. In 2011, you were probably focusing on Twitter and Facebook. In 2012, you must pay just as much attention to Google+. The fact is that Google+ has the potential to be a real game-changer for both social media marketing and search engine optimization. This is because Google+ affects personalized search results.

Search results have already reached a high degree of individual personalization. Two next door neighbors with Google accounts or who use Chrome will get different results from a Google search because of their past search history. Likewise, two users of Yahoo! mail will get personalized results from their Yahoo! search. There is also evidence of correlation between Facebook ‘likes’ and search results. And until recently, Twitter was open to Google’s search crawlers.

Google+ adds another dimension to Internet searches, however. The search history of your friends on Google+ will now affect your own search results. If you and your friend are both looking for a new HDTV, you’ll each see products the other looked at appear at the top of your search results (assuming you were both logged in to Google+ while searching). The potential SEO power of this Google+ feature has sent Yahoo! running to Facebook to establish a similar partnership, and it looks like Bing may join them. Therefore, 2012 will likely be defined by a trend to encourage your customers to market for you through their social media. By year’s end, it may make a lot of difference in how visible your company is online.

What this Means for Marketing: Reacting to the Change

If your business has not already established a solid presence in social media, you will need to this year. Having a Facebook page is a must because it is currently the most popular website in the world. Using Twitter is essential because it is among the most popular sources of consumer reviews. Getting on Google+ will be essential if you want to show up in the search results of your customer’s friends. Encouraging your customers to chat about you in each of these mediums will be crucial to your future marketing efforts.

Traditional marketing will probably continue to decrease in effectiveness. Speaking personally, I tend to expect the opposite of whatever a commercial says. When I see a TV ad or a billboard, my first thought is, “that’s a product to be suspicious of.” I believe that good products speak for themselves. If it’s not heavily marketed but I still see people buying it, that tells me:

That the company spent more money on building quality products than on advertising
That it is selling because it works and not because customers are being “mind-controlled”

If other people are anything like me, they will wait to buy your product until a few of their friends mention it in social media. Then, they will look online for more information before finally visiting your website or your store. This makes it crucial to boost the positive chatter about your business among your customers.

A Best Practice: Being All that Your Business Can Be

The U.S. Army provides a great example of marketing. Their commercials were among the few I really liked as a teenager. Their constant calls to “be all that you can be” synced well with my personal values and, for a brief moment, I actually considered enlisting. I echo that sentiment to you. Your business can be all that it can be when you focus on building products and offering services that will get people talking positively and excitedly about you.

There is much talk in the business world today about “best practices,” as corporations try to regain some of the trust and customer loyalty they have lost over the last few decades. To me, the best weapon in a company’s arsenal is to change their marketing from an aggressive customer-as-adversary approach (which is honestly how I perceive many advertisements) to a customer-as-champion approach where I can’t wait to tell every friend and acquaintance how good a product is.

Having spent this blog post (and my last two as well, for that matter) encouraging a social approach to marketing, I ask: What are you doing now to make your customers advertise for you?

Did terror tweets from The Onion cross the line?

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Pat Parkinson in blog 3 Comments

A string of tweets this morning had critics across the country turning their cross hairs on The Onion, a media outlet focused on delivering satire. A scare that prompted response from officers on Capitol Hill now has social media marketers asking: How far is too far?

Let’s review. The Onion sent this message this morning via Twitter: Breaking: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.

These tweets from The Onion quickly followed:

Breaking: Capitol building being evacuated. 12 children held hostage by a group of armed congressmen.

Police helicopter just ordered to pull back after Rep. Trent Franks tried to take it down with a shotgun

Two chaperones are also being held, one of whom is said to be pregnant

Those were published a few hours ago. But the madness continued as I wrote this post. The latest tweets included: Arlington gun shop confirms Rep. [Eric Cantor] bought 6 semi-automatic handguns, 3 rifles & 600 clips of ammo last month

Though some familiar with The Onion’s quirky style knew the posts were a spoof, the first tweet was graphic and had Twitter users asking whether the publication got hacked.

Onion staffers quickly confirmed Thursday that the tweet was not the work of a hacker: “This is satire. That’s how it works,” The Onion told a blogger for the Washington Post.

But there was backlash from some Twitter users:

“Poor taste and the first tweet didn’t disclose any satire”

“Have a feeling The Onion is going to catch some flack for their latest stunt, plus it wasn’t even funny..a rare miss”

“[The Onion] did a bad tweet. No satire, just scare.”

By the time this post was finished, writers at the Washington Post, MSNBC, ABC News and Politico had commented on the scare. Most marketers hope their clients merely get mentioned in those publications.

So I asked staffers at PRMarketing.com whether the tweets crossed the line. One employee, who enjoys reading The Onion, said she expects nothing less from the controversial newspaper. But another felt that some topics should not be joked about in a post-9/11 world.

During the discussion, a guy in our office who had never read The Onion visited the website for the first time.

Now I ask you: was this a deft social media marketing strategy, or is there a line that should not be crossed as businesses compete for followers and fans?

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