How to #Hashtag on Facebook

It has been a little over two months since Facebook rolled out it's hashtag feature and some brands have been utilizing as a potential tool to drive engagement. Although it hasn't gained much traction yet, Simply Measured's recent study found that brand adoption of Facebook hashtags had increased by 20% by the end of July. 

Five major brands have demonstrated strategic and effective hashtag tactics and, in turn, have been seeing major results:

1. American Express - Cross-Channel Campaign Promotion 
#PassionProject
Average Brand Engagement: 1,689
Post Engagement: 10,362
Engagement Factor: 6.1 x AVG
By creating awareness for its #PassionProject campaign using the same hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, American Express is making the campaign content discoverable across networks. 

2. Moet & Chandon - Seasonal Hashtags for Seasonal Products
#Summer 
Average Brand Engagement: 1,571
Post Engagement: 9,083
Engagement Factor: 5.7 x AVG
Seasonal hashtags allow seasonal brands like Moet & Chandon to promote #Summer products by tapping into a broad topic. 

3. Credit Suisse - News Jacking
#Wimbeldon 
Average Brand Engagement: 168
Post Engagement: 1,088
Engagement Factor: 6.4 x AVG
Credit Suisse, a multinational financial services holding company, used #Wimbeldon to highlight it's player sponsorship. Brands can use Facebook hashtags to create awareness for their pages by tapping into event discussion and providing valuable content. 

4. Loreal Paris - Already Popular Hashtags 
#ManiMonday
Average Brand Engagement: 1,012
Post Engagement: 3,387
Engagement Factor: 3.3 x AVG
Popular hashtags on other networks can be extended to Facebook. Cosmetic brands' use of #ManiMonday exemplifies that using context that has already been created for many popular tags on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram is effective. 

5. MTV - Leverage Your Largest Audience 
#BeyInspired 
Average Brand Engagement: 4,924
Post Engagement: 8,171
Engagement Factor: 1.7 x AVG
MTV has shown how brands can use Facebook hashtags to run integrated contests and promotions to encourage fans, their largest social audience, to participate on other networks. 

Instafamous

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Instagram is a free mobile photo-sharing app that currently boasts over 100 million users. The application was acquired by Facebook in April of 2012 and the rest is history.

For those socially savvy individuals looking to become 'instafamous', here are three tips to skyrocket your following.

1. Don't holdback on the hashtags
Hashtags are how your potential fans and followers will find you--so let them! Include any and as many relevant hashtags as applicable. When others like your photos, be sure to tag their handle and to thank them. This acknowledgement increases the chances that they will follow you. Finally, participate in popular hashtags like #tbt (throwbackthursday).

2. Take better pictures
Don't just be a picture taker, be an artist with a 'voice'. Spend the extra dollar or two and buy a good picture editing application. I personally recommend PicSay Pro, Snapseed or Colorsplash. You are more likely to gain followers with a well taken and well edited photo. Additionally, you will retain your current followers if you maintain the 'voice' you have created.

3. Build your Instacred
In order to trend and to gain visibility on Instagram, you need to be known. To accomplish this: follow others, like others' posts, and comment on their posts. Following and liking others are only the beginning on of the relationship. Commenting on others' posts shows that you want to further the relationship and generally seals the, "I'll follow you back" deal.

I'm slowly but surely making my rise to infamy, are you? If so, how? #f4f

#HowToHashtag

Having recently interviewed for a summer internship, I tried my best to prepare. I had a list of questions I thought I may be asked, especially ones related to the work I do at PRowl Public Relations. Naturally, I was asked an abundance of basic questions about the firm and I went on to happily answer all them with ease. When discussing social media tactics I have used for my account in this past semester, however, there was one question I could not seem to conjure up an answer for. The question was more or less asking how my PRowl Public Relations account decided upon certain hashtag campaigns for the various events we had hosted throughout the year.

This question got me thinking. How exactly does a PR professional, account team, or business leader, for that matter, come up with an effective Twitter hashtag campaign? Is there a science behind it?

Twitter hashtags are a little gesture that can go a long way. Most of the time they produce positive results, but there are instances in which hashtags can go very wrong (think McDonald’s #McDStories, more like #McFail, campaign last January). By including a relevant hashtag in your tweet, it becomes visible to people searching for that specific topic, adding your voice to the general discussion. The probability of your tweets being retweeted is also higher when you use the right hashtag to share your comments or insights about a subject or in PRowl’s case, in marketing an event.

 So I went to my trusty search-engine, Google, seeking the answer. What I found were many articles that all had similar tips for creating a simple yet powerful hashtag campaign on Twitter. Here is a list of pointers to keep in mind when creating your campaign:

 1. Determine the kind of value you aim to derive for yourself and your followers from using the hashtag. Do you intend to crowd source information, create buzz or provoke conversation? Make sure your intention and purpose for employing the hashtag is clear and focused. Formulate a hashtag that is relevant to your purpose and the subject you intend to tweet about.

 2. Check to see if the hashtag you have in mind already exists and is in use. It is also very important to check if your desired hashtag has not taken on some other meaning. Twitter Search, Hashtags.org and Tagalus are some tools you can use to do a quick hashtag check.

 3. Start tweeting your hashtag. It helps to set the context of your hashtag by briefly explaining what it means.

 4. Tweet with moderation. The last thing you want is to be seen as a spammer. For PRowl, we introduced the hashtag once daily up until the actual day of the event.

 5. Set up an automatic alert tool that sends you an email alert when someone tweets your hashtag. Twilert is one such tool.

Do you think Twitter hashtags help to raise visibility for businesses? Let us know your favorite!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kaitlyn Sutton.