social media marketing – The Social Pen

If you have any social media marketing knowledge at all, you are likely aware that hashtags are one of the most crucial parts of building a strong online brand (especially on Twitter).

With that being said, not just any hashtag will do. It seems silly that the little pound sign in front of words in a Tweet can be a complex marketing tool, but it truly is.

So, how can you make the most of this tool? I’d recommend the following.

3 Ways to Improve Your Hashtag Game

1. Be specific

Any word can be made into a hashtag, but that doesn’t mean that word will be effective, especially if the word is generic. For example, if you own a take-out pizza place, you could use #Pizza in your tweets. The issue with this, however, would be that people all over the world are using #Pizza. So, when one of your followers clicks on this hashtag, it’s doubtful they will find anything that relates to your business. Instead, they’ll be left sorting through millions of tweets from across the globe about this favorite food staple.

If your hashtag is too generic, your followers will be left sorting through millions of tweets from across the globe to find the content that is relevant to them. Help them get to that content more quickly with a more tailored tag.

Instead, try getting a little more specific. One example of this comes from my own city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Many pizza joints and restaurants use the hashtag #YEGPizza (YEG being the airport code for Edmonton). This is much more productive, since it narrows down the results to pizza that is in Edmonton only.

By doing this, followers of your pizza place will be able to click on #YEGPizza and find tweets from eateries within their own city – a much more relevant feed of content. Also, seeing you engage in this online feed will position you as an active, engaged participant in the Edmonton pizza community. A great boost for your brand!

There are many ways that you can make your hashtags more specific. You can add your location (as done above), reference specific brands (using #Starbucks as opposed to #Coffee), or even create your own hashtag that followers will readily identify with (Nike has taken their infamous “Just Do It” slogan and turned it into #JustDoIt on Twitter. They use this hashtag whenever they reply to a follower who has Tweeted to them about working out, and it has now become a motivational feed for athletic Twitter users around the world).

So before your next tweet, ask yourself “Am I being specific enough?”.

2. Don’t commit hashtag spam – it’s a crime!

Too many hashtags can result in your tweets looking like spam to your followers. Stick to one or two to keep your viewers engaged!

Have you found yourself wanting to fit as many hashtags into a tweet as you possibly can? Well, I’m here to tell you to stop.

Tweets that contain more than two hashtags immediately see a 17 per cent decrease in engagement.

To viewers, tweets with numerous hashtags can look like spam. The abundance of tags can seem desperate, and your tweet loses credibility. To keep viewers from scrolling past your tweets, stick to one or two hashtags (three at absolute maximum), and make them as pertinent to your audience as possible.

For example, are you tweeting about the upcoming 2017 Superbowl? Use their #SB51 hashtag as opposed to the blanket #Superbowl one. That way, your viewers know you are speaking about this year’s event. Using the latter means your tweet will be buried in with every #Superbowl tweet ever posted, from any year. Way less effective!

Tweets that contain more than two hashtags immediately see a 17 per cent decrease in engagement.

Also, this is the Superbowl-approved hashtag for the event, so it will deliver the most results. It’s the hashtag that sports channels will be using, as well as all official team accounts. Thus, there’s no need to keep adding tags like #Football or #Sports. Your audience will be watching the #SB51 feed, so that’s the best place to connect.

In the end, one succinct, fitting tag is better than a tweet full of hashtag spam!

3. Who else is using this hashtag?

This is a question every person utilizing social media should ask themselves when selecting a hashtag. Twitter has 317 million users, which makes it outstandingly likely that someone else is using the same hashtag as you.

In some cases, it’s okay that someone else is using your hashtag. For example, if you are a bakery that has just made a fresh batch of macarons, using #Macarons is a great idea! That way, people who are interested in delicious confections (and who don’t already know who you are) can see your talent. However, you may want to pair this hashtag with another one that is more specific. For example, if your bakery is in New York City, you could use #Macarons and #NYCBakery, so that people know where to find you.

Twitter has 317 million users, which makes it outstandingly likely that someone else is using the same hashtag as you.

However, if you are a company that is planning a charity fundraising event, you don’t want people clicking on your hashtag and finding other charity events that are also taking place. You want them to find YOUR event, and give to YOUR cause. This is an example of why it’s beneficial to always ask “Who else is using this hashtag?”.

Maybe someone else has already been using #CharityGala, but you can make it unique by adding your company’s name, like so: #SunSpaCharityGala. Or, you can create a specific name for your event and use it as the hashtag, with the year (Ex. #SunnyGala2016).

You may have to get a little creative, but it will pay off in the end when your social media followers are finding you easily and engaging at higher rates.

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When considering the creation of The Social Pen, it was imperative to me that there be value in my vision. There had to be something that could be taken away from this blog, something that readers could use and implement in their own lives.

Social Media, by nature, is a selfish concept. It allows you to broadcast to the world what you are doing, the things you like, and all the details of your life. Hundreds upon thousands of accounts, both personal and business, utilize social media in this way. Heck, I’m one of them. I’m guilty of snapping photos of the meals I cook for Instagram, or tweeting out my own opinions about politics. There’s something therapeutic about sending your thoughts out into the world-wide web, like casting a coin into a wishing well. It’s part of the human condition, I believe, to want to toss your line out into the endless pond that is the internet. Partly because of curiosity (there really isn’t any knowing what you’ll hook). But also because there’s that small chance that someone out there shares your same thoughts, feelings or opinions. There are connections to be made, of all kinds, and all it takes it one “like” on a post to remind us of that.

The Social Pen: Where we take the timeless writing fundamentals of the past, the cutting edge social media tools of today, and use them both to create content for the future.

But I believe there is power in social media beyond self-indulgence. When used properly, much like any form of media, it has the ability to truly create change.

People have been using the pen to write the truth since it was invented.

Fighters, revolutionary’s, and free-thinkers have seen this opportunity in media for much longer than I can attest to. People have been using the pen to write the truth since it was invented. And before it, they used their voices to tell stories.

Today, the potential to communicate in a way that results in change is the same. It’s the ability to be heard by the masses in (essentially) an instant that is different.

And that’s where social media comes in.

Social media hasn’t rewritten the message. People largely still want to communicate the same things they have for hundreds of years – love, comedy, knowledge. At its core, content endures time. But what social media has done is this: it’s taken the carrier pigeon, and replaced it with a lightening-speed delivery system, where stories travel nearly as fast as the thoughts that conceive them.

Hopefully, through The Social Pen, we’ll all be inspired to use social media (and the web) for far more than selfies and cat videos (although there will always be a need for the occasional cat video).

So, how do we use this system? How do we make the most of it so the messages that need to be heard, are heard?

After much thought, that is the purpose of this blog. It’s about learning how to adjust the knobs of the machine that is the internet, program the settings just-so, and use the most effective fuel, so that it gets you to where you need to go, as fast as you need to get there.

That’s what The Social Pen is. It’s a new take on an old classic. I’ll be writing (as people always have), but in a 21st century way. I’ll be penning articles that teach you how to navigate the ever-evolving world-wide web. And hopefully, through The Social Pen, we’ll all be inspired to use social media (and the web) for far more than selfies and cat videos (although there will always be a need for the occasional cat video).

Let’s use it as the tool of influence it really is. So, what do you say?

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