Managing a brand hashtag campaign isn’t as easy as it sounds. There’s multiple steps you have to follow to make sure your hashtag is strong, your community uses it, and you collect all the tagged content in one place. In this article, we’ll go over the basic steps of setting up a campaign.
What is a brand hashtag campaign?
A brand hashtag campaign is a marketing initiative designed to harness the power of social media hashtags to generate buzz, foster community engagement, and promote brand awareness. When executed effectively, these campaigns can transcend mere visibility, creating meaningful interactions and fostering a community around your brand or cause.
Make your next hashtag campaign a success!
Aggregate hashtag content from multiple social media channels.
Why are brand hashtag campaigns great?
Hashtags are a powerful tool that makes content related to a specific topic easily accessible and searchable. Whether created by companies, social causes, or individual users, they serve as a beacon, guiding conversations and information about specific topics. This accessibility empowers users to stay informed and engaged, enhancing their social media experience.
Hashtags can bring together users of a product, giving the audience a way to interact with each other, discuss relevant topics on social media, and share their thoughts to be seen by others. They are a great addition to all kinds of campaigns: product launches, partnerships, store openings, brand events, and more. There are many more ways to use hashtags for brands, especially in combination with a social media wall that displays the conversation centered around the hashtag.
How to set up a brand hashtag campaign
We’ll cover the three main steps of setting up a brand hashtag campaign.
1. Choosing the right hashtag
The first step in creating a hashtag feed is to choose the right hashtag. Here are our trusted rules for creating one:
Relevant: Ensure your chosen hashtag is relevant to your brand or content. For example, if you’re a food blogger, you might use hashtags like #foodie+(your region).
Short: Try to keep it below 10 characters, but when in doubt, go for a longer but understandable hashtag rather than an acronym no one will get. And decide on only one hashtag for your feed. A combination of different hashtags will only confuse people.
Unique: Make sure the hashtag you choose is unique. You don’t want to confuse your followers or compete with other brands using the same hashtag.
You can use tools like Hashtagify or RiteTag to find the right hashtag. These tools allow you to search for hashtags, see how many times they’ve been used, and find related hashtags you might want to use.
2. Getting people to use your hashtag
The one thing you have to do to get people posting is to promote your hashtag everywhere.
When I say everywhere, I mean make stickers with the hashtag, add it to the header of your social wall, share it all over social media, and get a huge banner on-site where it matters. Make your hashtag as clear and visible as possible for your audience to remember.
3. Setting up a hashtag feed
There are many sources you can use to pull content tagged with your hashtag. Some of the most popular ones are Instagram, X or LinkedIn. This guide on setting up a hashtag feed will teach you every step of the way.
After setting it up, navigate to the Embed & Display section of your Walls.io dashboard and grab the embed code. Then go to your website and paste the snippet where you want the hashtag feed to appear. The hashtag feed will automatically fetch all the content people publish on social media accounts.
Hashtag campaign examples with different use cases
Here are some of the best examples of hashtag campaigns we spotted in recent years:
- hashtag campaign for employees by METRO
- hashtag campaign for CSR by BearingPoint
- hashtag campaign for a city, a touristic region or a local event
- seasonal hashtag marketing campaign by Cadbury
- long-term awareness hashtag campaign by the United Nations
- UGC hashtag contest campaigns by Raiffeisen Bank
- event series hashtag campaigns by San Francisco Symphony
- hashtag campaigns for celebrations the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
- hashtag campaigns for donations by Life is Good
- pre-launch hashtag campaigns by YT Industries
- brand UGC collection hashtag campaigns by NatureFresh™ Farms
Make your next hashtag campaign rock!
Aggregate hashtag content from multiple social media channels.