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December 10, 2020

How to Create a Successful Hashtag Campaign

Smart social media marketing can send a brand’s visibility through the roof.

By  Maguire Sholette

Inspiring your audience, promoting change in the world and creating your company’s online outreach all at the same time can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be complex. Almost every brand with an active social media presence knows that understanding the general mood and online culture surrounding them is key to good marketing. Not every company will be able to spark a movement, but we can all take lessons from the big brands that have done just that.

1. To Us All, Not Just Half – Microsoft’s #MakeWhatsNext

Microsoft saw an important opportunity both to promote and inspire, with its hashtag campaign #MakeWhatsNext. To celebrate International Women’s Day and inspire girls’ participation and excitement for STEM activities, Microsoft produced a series of videos promoting women’s contribution to those fields. The videos garnered millions of views. Not only was Microsoft able to promote its products and values through this program, but it also gave educators strategies for increasing awareness and representation.

What to Take Away: Don’t be afraid to embrace a movement or a cause that needs attention. The issue of female representation in STEM fields is right up Microsoft’s alley, and its campaign to bring attention to this topic is both admirable and sensible. So, if you find an issue important to your company, and you have the chance to help in any way – it literally couldn’t hurt at all.

2. The Devil’s in the (Seemingly Private) Details – Spotify’s #2020Wrapped

What better way to celebrate the decade, than to review your favorite tracks? That’s what Spotify allowed users to do, with its Wrapped series. Starting back in 2017, to celebrate a year of extraordinary success, Spotify wanted to let its users have access to all their musical data. And since then, Wrapped has only improved. The best part? #2020Wrapped only helped to improve Spotify’s visibility. Wrapped almost always crowds a person’s feed when it comes out annually. Everyone – including famous artists – talking about your service is free advertising. The ability to share this personal info with others is fun and cooperative, creating a community for Spotify to further rally around.

What to Take Away: If people are passionate about anything, it’s themselves. Oh, and also, the people they get their entertainment from. Creating an event out of your product is fun, interesting and catches people’s attention across the board.

3. You Can’t Get Enough Participation – Lush’s #LushLife

Lush isn’t like other beauty companies; instead, it’s open, honest and unwilling to partake in the seemingly high-fashion world of the beauty industry. In order to spread awareness of various social issues (outlined in the brand’s values), Lush began #LushLife, which allows people to share their beauty routine and setup with the company and its followers. People who use #LushLife are portrayed as part of the company and its message – that all people, regardless of social or economic conditions, have the right to be beautiful, to share their beauty and to embrace it. It’s no wonder this hashtag has over 700,000 posts linked to it.

What to Take Away: Be. Real. While participation on Twitter is also a key to Lush’s overall financial success, its success as a brand and as a movement comes down to relatability. Its introspection on the beauty industry, as well as use of real people, rather than models, for photoshoots and posts, brings a level of authenticity to its actions and messages. Take the filter off yourself and your company. Social media is about being genuine (or at least seeming that way).

4. Spectacle, By Us – Apple’s #ShotOniPhone

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The iPhone is one of the most popular pieces of technology in human history. However, with some people doubting how much Apple innovates its products from year to year, marketing can be difficult. To prove the product’s versatility, Apple invited users to show off their own creations through its #ShotOniPhone Challenge. The challenge was easy, fun and has produced some of the funniest and most impressive content on the internet. With user submissions, Apple has been able garner hours of fantastic footage – all for the purpose of promoting the equally fantastic capabilities of the iPhone camera. Since everyone has a funny video or cool moment caught by their phone camera up their sleeve, this hashtag/challenge was able to get many people to post their content when, otherwise, they wouldn’t have.

What to Take Away: People enjoy engaging with spectacle, funny videos and beautifully shot productions. It’s that simple. The ability to promote your product by combining users’ experiences with the product’s own technological merit is invaluable. For the promotional products world, why not create a challenge of your own, asking clients to show off their favorite branded items being used, essentially letting them create content for you? (Our recent #PromoInTheWild campaign shows it can be a winning strategy.)

5. The Character Counts – Charmin’s #TweetFromTheSeat

For being a toilet paper company, Charmin knows the art of public image. With more than 85,000 followers on Twitter, Charmin uses its very nature as a company to make puns, tell overtly dirty jokes and poke fun at itself for a large audience. And people love it. #TweetFromTheSeat, a simple hashtag intended to inspire others to share insightful toilet-thoughts, has easily been one of the funniest things to come out of corporate Twitter – and was a finalist for a Shorty Award. Turns out, you give people an inch, and they take a mile. #TweetFromTheSeat is hilarious, simple and also attracts people from outside the Charmin-verse to have some fun and share their thoughts. Even after this hashtag fell by the wayside, people continued to use the tag simply to put any fun toilet humor out in the public discourse – and that’s something not every company can achieve.

What to Take Away: Have fun. Stay in character. Charmin, being a toilet paper brand, is already fighting an uphill battle for social media attention. So, embrace it! Charmin succeeds through its tongue-in-cheek humor, and unwillingness to compromise on character or premise. Now, if that isn’t admirable, I don’t know what is.