How To Run An Effective Hashtag Campaign?

❝ In the digital age of marketing, content is an ocean whereas #Hashtag is a boat that helps the brand reach the shore (customers). ❞

As per the current marketing scenario, hashtag marketing is so omnipresent that a majority of business owners and marketers consider it a common practice to achieve their marketing goals and objectives.

Did you know that your engagement rates on Twitter and Instagram might increase by up to 12.6% when you use hashtags?

If you are fascinated by hashtags and wish to incorporate them in your next marketing campaign, then kudos for being at the correct spot. Make your way to the end to explore the best strategies, real-time examples, and inspiration that can be the strongest weapon in your marketing arsenal!

What Is A Hashtag Campaign?

A marketing campaign that incorporates a hashtag to expand its audience and encourage their involvement is referred to as a hashtag campaign. It is a phenomenal way for brands to upscale awareness about a business, product, service, upcoming launch, and much more.

In comparison to a standard ad or organic campaign, a successful hashtag campaign allows you to reach a much larger audience on social media. Take a second to think about all the followers who use your hashtag and share it in their posts and how likely they will be to interact with you. Interesting, right?

Types of Hashtag Campaigns

• UGC Campaigns

A UGC campaign entices people to create content for the brand. Unlike other campaigns, the UGC campaign is centered around your user’s content, which is far more result driven and engaging.

User-generated content(UGC) is any form of content that is created by the existing consumer of a brand. It can be in the form of images, videos, reviews, and testimonials. Since people like to follow other people, they too will be compelled to be a part of your campaign.

Just like people trust people, customers trust other customers, which can help you increase your brand value and gradually drive sales and conversions.

If your aim is to get people to like, know and trust your brand, this is where user-generated content comes into play. The fact that UGC is untouched, raw, and unfiltered makes it even more valuable. Be it Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke campaign or Starbucks’ #WhiteCupContest, this type of campaign is one of the most result driven and needless to say, highly engaging!

• Social Media Campaigns

The idea of a social media campaign is to blend your marketing efforts with one or more than one social media platforms to help you attain your business goals.

Here’s how to go about it – Select your ideal social media platform from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Knowing your audience as per your business segment is the key. If your company falls under the category of B2B, LinkedIn can be your preferred platform, however, if are a B2C or D2C, then consider executing your hashtag campaign on other platforms instead. Whether you take the organic route or use paid ads, you will be able to boost your brand value and get more active participation from your users.

For instance – Marc Jacobs’ #CastMeMarc campaign came into the limelight since the brand was looking for more participation. Instagram users were invited to upload photographs with the hashtag #CastMeMarc to become a Marc Jacobs model in the competition.

In 24 hours, more than 12,000 Instagram posts with the hashtag #CastMeMarc were posted, or nearly 8 selfies per minute.

• Contests or Giveaways Campaign

Contests and giveaways are a fun way to build better relationships with your followers and convert them into your existing customers. Hashtag giveaways motivate followers to post content using a specific hashtag. The secret is to create a hashtag that causes a buzz amongst your followers and promotes your campaign through Word-Of-Mouth Marketing.

Moreover, have you ever heard of someone who says they do not like freebies, incentives,  and prizes? If the free products or prizes they see in your contest appeal to them as they browse, they will totally be sure to jump on the bandwagon and be a part of the campaign.

Take Pink Lime’s Good Hair Day Contest for instance. They asked their users to submit entries by flaunting their favorite hairstyle using the brand’s hashtag. The users were given the liberty to choose any background of the picture as they wanted. The highlight of the contest was the prize that intrigued them to participate in the contest.

The winners of the contest were given a makeover by the brand worth 500$ absolutely free of cost! Super attractive, isn’t it?

• Influencer Campaigns

Here’s the deal – Influencers are termed Influencers since they have the potential to influence and convert prospective customers of a brand to loyal brand advocates.

Influencers reveal your products and services in the front and center through their huge popularity and impactful content.

You contact a well-known social media influencer to advocate your product rather than asking your consumers to recommend it to their friends and relatives. If the campaign is a success, you may reach thousands or millions of new customers.

Häagen-Daz Buy One Get One (BOGO) promotions were conducted in New York. This campaign was to promote ice creams and sampling events at Duane Reade and Walgreens Stores across New York City.

Häagen-Dazs collaborated with local influencers in New York City who catered to the millennial audience. The influencers produced content under the hashtag #Häagen-DazsOpenContainer, which was a play on words related to news events happening in New York at the time. Overall, 14.3 million impressions and 27,400 social interactions were generated by the campaign overall.

#1. Recognize your target audience

Make sure you understand where your target demographic is and the kind of content they enjoy interacting with to decide what kind of hashtag campaign to launch.

To comprehend your target market’s online behavior patterns, tap into understanding their sensibilities and create a campaign that they can relate to and are interested in.

#2. Set your objectives

Ask yourself why you are running this campaign. Is it for jacking up sales? For increasing awareness of your product or service? Or for generally interacting with your target market? 

• For a basic brand-fans interaction vibe, consider developing a hashtag campaign with the goal to gather information by encouraging your audience to use the hashtag in innovative ways.
• Make sure to include some portion of your brand name in the hashtag if you want to raise awareness of your brand. Try to think of clever wordplay that you may use for holding onto their interest. 
• If you want to boost sales, keep your hashtag campaign concentrated on a single good or service that you want to generate sales for rather than mixing it up with other products or services.

#3. Keep it simple to encourage more participation

Simply put, your audience will refuse to participate in your campaign if the process is complex or unnecessarily prolonged! The key here is to avoid having too many steps. Make it simple to participate and enter. You need to ensure that the hashtag decided by you is related to the product or services your campaign is about.

Did you know Longer hashtags that have between 21 and 24 characters outperform shorter ones?

Instead of asking your customers to attempt extra steps, you can enable them to complete the process, simplifying it by posting an image or video using the hashtag. Simplicity is key and will push others to also participate in the campaign.

#4. Pick the appropriate Social Media Platform

In order to launch your hashtag campaign successfully, you must select the best platform. Twitter and Instagram are the two most widely used platforms for hashtags, so you’ll probably choose one of those two.

If your intent is to generate visual UGC, then leveraging Instagram can be your best bet. If you are running a text-based hashtag campaign, Twitter would be your perfect choice. However, if you are generating user-generated video content, then do not miss out on TikTok, which is a current craze amongst Gen Z’s.

#5. Repurpose hashtag campaign on marketing touchpoints

Once you have run the hashtag campaign successfully, increase its impact and reach by repurposing it on crucial marketing touchpoints.

Here are a few use cases that you can consider to repurpose your hashtag feeds fruitfully:

• Websites – To increase the effectiveness of your website and make your hashtag campaign stream visible to your online audience, you can embed it on your brand website. Create a memorable surfing experience for your website visitors by embedding a real-time hashtag feed easily.

• Digital Screens – Run your live hashtag campaign on the digital screens located across your area or events to provide your viewers with an unforgettable display experience. Successfully tap into your audience’s interest and urge them to be a part of your hashtag campaign.

• Email Campaigns – Your hashtag campaign feed can be incorporated into your emailers to help you create more powerful email campaigns for your brand. Your hashtag campaign will increase the open rates of your emails, lower cart abandonment, and reach more people.

• Social Ads – Use an interesting hashtag campaign feed to make social media ads profitable and motivational for your target demographic. Create different ads including your hashtag campaigns to get the most amount of clicks and conversions in your CTA(Call-to-action).

• E-Commerce – Revamp your e-Commerce stores by including hashtag campaigns. Since hashtag campaigns give your customers insight into how your customers are liking your product, it would tap into their interests and urge them to give your product a try.

Bonus: Track your UGC Hashtag Campaign growth using Taggbox

Analyzing your campaign’s performance is a crucial additional tactic to keep in mind. Analytics will provide you with an in-depth understanding of your campaign.

Taggbox will inform you of your engagement levels, the number of people who shared the posts, and many other crucially important metrics. Mentioned below are a few KPIs you need to keep in mind while measuring the ROI of your hashtag campaign:

• Posts – The overall count of the posts that were created using your hashtag 
• Engagement – Overall likes, clicks, and comments that the hashtag received
• Impressions – The total number of times views your hashtag feed gets. the hashtag has been viewed
• Users – Total number of users who used the hashtag in their content
• Reach – The total number of feeds where your hashtag has reached

Best Hashtag Campaign Examples To Ramp Up Your Brand’s Success

1. Oppo x Wimbledon 2022

It all started when Oppo celebrated 100 years of the center court at the Grand Slam Wimbledon matches. As the fourth year’s official worldwide smartphone partner of Wimbledon, OPPO included its superior imaging capabilities to record inspirational and iconic moments of the competition.

The Find X5 Pro was the newly launched exclusive product used for the special Wimbledon 2022 photography. To promote it, the pictures were posted in the form of a hashtag widget on Oppo’s official website. The visitors were asked to participate in the #CapturingInspiration & #ShotOnOppo contests. They were invited to share photographs of the tournament captured by the Oppo Find X5 pro on social media using the hashtag #ShotOnOppo to win lucky draws and avail goodies. This resulted in getting more attention from prospective customers and generating a massive amount of User-Generated Content.

BuddyPress Hashtags by Wbcom Designs will help you add hashtags to your community website. It is compatible with both BuddyPress and bbPress. You can use them for searching community activities according to hashtags, under forum topics and replies, etc.

The highlight of the event was the selfie booth at the venue to experience the phone’s camera in real-time.

2. Vans

Vans is a supremely famous brand and its USP is shoes, tees, hoodies, kids’ shoes, and backpacks. To increase its conversions, the brand started customizing goodies for its users. Just like the phrase goes ‘USP is not a luxury, it is a necessity.’, the customers were excited to visit the website and choose their desired designs and materials. From adding quirky images to apparel and accessories to including checker effects to an image, Vans offered ample options to its customers.

The brand offered the users to be featured on their website by using the hashtag #VansCustoms after receiving their customized product. It worked as an inspiration for prospective customers to come forward and order customized goodies from the brand.

3. Parachute Home

Parachute, a famous D2C brand that sells bedding and bathing products, invited its users to include the hashtag #MyParachuteHome in their content showcasing their products. Rather than merely using the images for social media posts, Parachute leveraged the power of User-Generated Content and repurposed the content on social media retargeting ads which made it much more effective and appealing.

“Instead of buying and selling commodity derivative, you’re buying and selling people’s attention spans,” – Luke Droulez, VP of Marketing, Parachute Home

Comparing these ads to those that don’t use UGC, the click-through rate was 35% higher and the cost per click was 60% lower!

4. Etihad arena 

The goal of Etihad Arena was to make the space more enjoyable for visitors and to encourage them toward sharing information on social media.

Although Etihad Arena and UFC are already international powerhouses with a huge global audience, they receive a lot of fan-generated content from fans who share their excitement for the event; their aim was to increase this amount.

They hoped to use this User-Generated Content during their event and get more out of it. At that point, Taggbox Display stepped in to save the day. Using the platform, they displayed UGC on digital signages and pillar wraps across the area and motivated their visitors to create and post content on their social media handles using the hashtags #UFC267 & #EtihadArena.

5. #HollywoodSelfie by Pedigree Australia

Pet parents love taking selfies with their four-legged babies, but, it is not easy to keep them still. In order to get dogs to stare squarely at the camera, Pedigree Australia in the month of National Pet Dental Health month launched DentaStix.

The application assisted users in holding the dog’s interest long enough by using squeaky and attractive noises to take a picture. Every picture was saved to the phone’s camera feed, where users may share them later on Instagram by using the hashtag #HOLLYWOODselfie.

The posts of the Instagram users that were clicked and published using the brand’s hashtag were then curated and embedded on the website with the help of Taggbox Widget. This strategy helped them improve the brand’s ROI by boosting the SEO reach, inspiring prospects, and driving more conversions.

Calling It A Wrap!

To successfully grow your brand on social media, hashtag campaigns are necessary. Considering the participation and enthusiasm levels of social media users towards hashtag campaigns, what could be better to bolster your marketing approach than including them in your marketing campaigns? 

We are at the conclusion section of the post and you are now ready to run an effective hashtag campaign for your brand and business. What are you waiting for now? Go on, select your inspiration and maximize your profits effectively.

Until next time, Ciao!