I’ve always considered hashtag campaigns on Twitter a complete waste of time. For the longest time, they were no more than spam campaigns in my mind and resulted in nothing but negative branding.

But when I stopped paying attention to how everyone else was running these campaigns and started thinking more strategically about them, I was able to pull together a campaign that resulted in community, loyalty and sales — to name a few.

Problems with hashtag campaigns

1. Not ideal for gaining new followers as a tag alone requires additional effort to find a brand’s Twitter account
2. Looked down upon by the community as brands can easily create spam armies with them (and little to no brands put a limit on entries with hashtag contests)
3.  Aside from brand exposure, it’s hard to track any solid results/ROI.

At the same time, however, hashtag campaigns certainly have some major strengths: 1. Easy to go viral as it’s easy to do, 2. Massive brand exposure (which can be negative though if spammed) and 3. Allow brands to get community’s creativity tied to the brand (creative fun + Twitter + contest = winner).

All of that said, here’s the approach I took with our hashtag contest.

A better approach

1. Limited the number of entries (only 1 entry allowed, increased the number of participants and received no complaints or negative branding).
2. Tied the hashtag itself to a larger event to make it useable beyond the campaign. Introducing the tag before the campaign and allowing it to spread encouraged the community to continue to use it after the contest.
3. Followed everyone who used the hashtag and engaged in conversation with all of them about the contest, their passion and our products.

The real difference maker here was #3: Without that engagement and conversation, we wouldn’t have gained hundreds of new followers, nor would we have ultimately received the ROI we seeked.

Results

~5,000 tweets of the hashtag over the duration of the contest and event
~3,000 tweets of our brand name due to conversations
~Hundreds of new followers

- Ultimately the event was sold out and our continued conversations with those from the hashtag campaign resulted in continued sales for additional amenities throughout the event (about 3 weeks).
- Selling additional tickets to the event came because the hashtag campaign created such great exposure that it reminded many members of the community we had targeted about our event. From there, our conversations with them ultimately led to direct sales.

All of these results came because of a hashtag campaign that was formed around the idea of engagement being more important than the exposure. We took it a step further by rewarding people for continuing to use the hashtag during the event itself to win prizes or appear on screens at the event.

We also went on to meet a large number of the people involved in the campaign in person to remain consistent with that theme. By the end of it all, the tag had become second nature to anyone who knew about the campaign — using it didn’t feel like being in a contest or a marketing ploy, but like normal conversation and a part of the community’s norms.

If you focus your efforts on community and ultimately loyalty with hashtag campaigns, the sales and exposure will inevitably come.

At last I am a believer in hashtag marketing — let’s just hope the old, completely ineffective approaches to these campaigns now begin to fade away.