Hashtags are changing the ways of interaction online. They are making content more organized and systematic to access and to share as well. This is giving hashtags more and more power to dominate social media. You must be already aware of hashtag campaigns such as #Metoo that made such a huge buzz on social media.
There are many other examples of how brands are using hashtags in a creative manner as well. It is helping them expand their reach and grow as a brand. Leveraging hashtags have proven to be the right step ahead and are doing a great job to take brands to the next level.
Customer Support
Many brands are using hashtags to respond to customer queries and requests through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Users are already discussing brands over social media, why not clear their doubt there itself. Studies show over a one-third population prefers social media customer support than the traditional phone and email channels. Therefore, offering social customer support can help you satisfy a lot of your users.
If you’re worried about social media demanding 24-hour support for 7 days a week, you can relax. You can specify your timings and reply accordingly to your users accordingly. For example, Apple Support, they have mentioned the timings they are available.
To make this a success, make sure to monitor your hashtags and mentions so that your team can respond on a timely basis. Social Customer Support will also give you the advantage to understand your users by talking to them in real-time.
Social Media Displays
Social media display solution that works with the help of social media aggregators. These aggregators gather content from various social platforms to showcase it on one wall. The content is collected on the basis of particular hashtags, accounts or tags that people mention in their posts.
There are various brands that already have a tremendous social presence and have a popularly used hashtag. These brands generate a good amount of UGC and use Social Walls to display it to the world. These social walls attract more users and more participation in using the hashtag. It can be embedded on your website as well as be displayed on digital screens.
You can use social walls to promote your brand, event, products, and services. The display of UGC makes it a robust tool as it has the power to influence new users and give them a final nudge to make purchases. This happens because UGC displays the products in action in real-time situations which clears all doubts of new users about the product.
Employee Advocacy
Many brands believe that banning their employees from social media is a good idea whereas it is the opposite. Employees can help your brand on many levels with their active and effective presence on social media.
Studies show that employees of socially engaged companies can get higher sales and also stay at the company longer. Setting up a good employee advocacy program can help you achieve a few essential goals such as boosting the company’s morale, increase traffic and conversions and build and protect a good online reputation for the brand.
Starbucks is a great example of a successful employee advocacy program. It has created a partner account for all its employees named as Starbuckspartners on various social media platforms. The accounts have a huge following which influences a lot of its users. The hashtag they use is #tobeapartner. These employees act as the true ambassadors of the brand delighting a lot of customers.
Trends Monitoring
Social media has become a beginning point for a lot of news and keeping up with the latest news is a necessity for a lot of businessmen, brands or marketers. These people don’t have time to keep scrolling their social media feeds all day, they use hashtags for searching the news on social media platforms.
Hashtags such as #socialmedianews or #twitternews are quite popular for accessing news on social media platforms. These hashtags help to find in-depth articles and detailed stories on such crowded and information-heavy platforms.
You can also use hashtags to keep track of the latest trends in your industry and keep an eye on your competitors as well.
Take Away
Hashtags are doing a great job and leveraging them for your marketing strategies can help you with a lot of aspects for your brand.
Each point I have mentioned above serves a different aspect of a brand such as better customer support, better engagement, employee satisfaction with higher sales and learning about the new trends. Each aspect turns out to be crucial for the business.
If hashtags can help you with all these aspects, what is the harm in creating and using one for your brand? So go on and try these amazing ways to leverage hashtags for your business and overshadow your competitors.
