Monday’s blog post gave you all the ins and outs as to why the hashtag (#) is important to your marketing efforts and why you need to be incorporating it. If you missed that one you’ll want to go back and read it now, or when you’re done here. The two go hand in hand.
Once you have an understanding of hashtags and how to incorporate them, think about this as a how-to guide, or a few tips on what you can do as a retail advertiser to keep your topics relevant year-round. Remember, the hashtag is an organizational tool that groups posts, tweets, pins and updates based on a keyword and the pound (#) sign.
What I want to do today is give you a concrete example of what you can do to incorporate a hashtag into your mix. This is one big hypothetical based on what I might do if I were in charge of social media for a particular company. In my humble opinion, or IMHO for you shorthanders, these principles could be applied to any retail advertiser who wants to maintain the discussion around a simple topic all year. So let’s get into it.
When I’m wearing my favorite brands, brands, brands, brands, one of them is undoubtedly a T-shirt from Twin Six (see image below for what I'm sporting today). These guys make, what are in my opinion, some of the coolest apparel, both technical and casual, around. Each summer they have a special every Wednesday they’ve dubbed as their Humpday Sale, where a specific set of products are 36% off. Now this particular company is very active promoting their sales on both Facebook and Twitter. However, they haven’t incorporated the hashtag into their Humpday Sales.
Here’s what I’d recommend: Stay away from #humpday as a standalone, that’s just opening yourself up to being associated with all sorts of carnage online. Instead, start using #humpdaysale every week, and multiple times as you share updates during the day about what’s on sale.
Here’s what’s going to happen: the followers who take advantage of the TwinSix #humpdaysale will start sharing what they’ve purchased and incorporating the hashtag into their posts. Pretty soon TwinSix will own the #humpdaysale hashtag.
Once that happens it opens all sorts of options for TwinSix for the rest of the year. Two weeks ago I told you about retailers’ desires to have one long season, called ValenPatIndeB2SHalloThanksMas. I was half joking, but at the same time, if done well, retailers could own unique social tags making them relevant year-round, instead of just following the crowd.
For instance, if TwinSix decided to own the #humpdaysale, they could incorporate one-off Humpday Sales throughout the rest of the year and gain traffic and increased visibility. Current followers know the sales happen every Wednesday during the summer. But if they sign up to follow the #humpdaysale hashtag and get a notification on a random Wednesday in October, they’re bound to see what the scoop is. Or better yet, TwinSix could host a #humpdaysale on a Sunday in November, which might get people’s thumbs to stand at attention as they scramble to get their gear via smartphone and beat the rest of the schmucks enjoying their day of rest.
As I said, this concept could be applied to any number of retailers as they’re putting together advertising campaigns and engaging in social media, this is just one example for a brand I’m familiar with. If you’re interested in learning how to take advantage of local digital opportunities, take a look at our most recent eBook, The Smart Marketer’s Guide to Local Digital Advertising.
Scott Olson is the director of marketing at Mediaspace Solutions. His career has spanned marketing positions in the non-profit, software and utility sectors providing various marketing experiences. You can connect with Scott on Facebook, Google+, Twitter or LinkedIn.
