If you’re hoping for a post or topic to trend on social media, the right hashtag can be the key to success. From an event marketing perspective, a hashtag specific to your event can spark buzz, encourage conversation, and optimize discovery. In addition to expanding your audience, hashtags are also an easy way to monitor what people are saying about your event throughout its run. With that said, choosing the perfect hashtag for your event can take time and careful consideration. That’s why our marketing experts have put together four key aspects to consider when creating a successful event hashtag!
Uniqueness and Creativity
One of the most important aspects of your event hashtag is its uniqueness. You want to develop a hashtag that wouldn’t likely be used for anything else besides your event, keeping the content feed on topic. Depending on the type of event, puns, jokes, and funny slogans can be your best friends here! For example, if you’re hosting a pop-up museum, you could use #PopInto____ as your event hashtag. Or if it’s a pet-themed consumer convention you’re promoting, you could use something like #Pawsitively_____. A creative slogan or saying will help you stand out amongst your competitors, and can encourage users to interact with your hashtag online and create their own organic content surrounding it!
Simplicity and Clarity
Your hashtag is only as good as it is usable, so make sure it’s is short, simple, and easy to understand. No one wants to type out a full sentence as a hashtag, so keep it between one to four words. Plus, some social media sites like Twitter, still have a per-post character limit, so keeping it short also ensures users can fit your hashtag into their posts. In addition to being relatively short, however, your hashtag should be straightforward and uncomplicated. Using too many acronyms or confusing language can dissuade users from using, following, or engaging with your hashtag, decreasing your overall social reach. For example, if you were planning a new festival of hope in New York City, you might be tempted to use a hashtag like #NYCFOH. Without a frame of reference, however, this may just come of as a jumble of random letters!
Brand Consistency
Your hashtag is a direct extension of your event’s branding, so it’s important to keep your messaging consistent even here. Utilize the same kind of language in your event hashtag that you do in your day-to-day marketing activities. If you have a hashtag that is unrelated to your event, unfamiliar users won’t understand it, and they will be much less likely to engage with it. For example, if your event is a music festival, your hashtag should revolve around factors like your festival’s name, the city it’s occurring in, and the type of music you’ll be hosting.
Positive Memorability
Before pressing the publish button, make sure you’ve double and triple checked your hashtag for every possible interpretation it could have online. You want to ensure no one will be offended, confused, or take your hashtag the wrong way. There are many examples of failed hashtag campaigns online, simply because they weren’t thought through (a simple Google search will provide plenty of hilarious results). One of the main reasons your hashtag can be misinterpreted is that words can be hard to separate when they’re connected, so use strategic capitalization if necessary!