hashtags

Market Your Event with Twitter Hashtags

If you have an event to market, Twitter is officially the best resource you will find at your disposal. While other social media methods are helpful, and having an expanse of marketing tools will provide you with the best results, tweets will beat them all every time. The reason for that is the live feed algorithm unique to the website, which provides instant updates for both followers and searchers.

Market Your Event with Twitter Hashtags

This doesn’t happen on its own. It is up to you to both keep things up to date as you move closer to the event, and especially to use the correct hashtags for the job.

What Is A Hashtag?

Even if you are new to Twitter, you have probably seen a hashtag – often used incorrectly on other sites to add emphasis. It is a basic keyword or phrase that identifies and describes your event, placed against a #. For example, this article could be linked under #TwitterTools or #EventMarketing.

 

hashtags

 

What this does is establishes a concrete keyphrase within the post itself. From there, Twitter puts it in with any other searches using the same phrase. Users can look for these updates on Twitter Search, or load the hashtag into a desktop or mobile client such as TweetDeck.

You can also use websites like #Hashtags for the job.

How To Choose The Right Hashtag

Now that you know what a hashtag is, you need to know how to properly utilize your new knowledge. Here are a few tips on creating a good, solid hashtag that will properly promote your event.

  • Be direct and clear. There are a lot of amusing, obscure or sarcastic hashtags used by Twitter users in personal posts. You don’t want to do that yourself. Try to be completely clear about what you are promoting, using the name or an abbreviation of the name of the event.
  • Use more than one. The first hashtag is like providing a first search, which has to be exact for people to find it. So having two or three hashtags can hellp expand the search parameters for interested users.
  • Keep things short. One reason that a lot of events provide links to outside articles or blog posts is because of the 140 character limit for tweets. You can use shorter URL’s through services like TinyURL. But the character limit also applies to the hashtag, so the shorter it is while keeping it clear, the better.
  • Remember that you are branding your hashtag. A lot of people don’t understand that coming up with an event hashtag (or tags) is a branding of sorts. That tag will be official, and used by other people who are retweeting or tweeting about updates. So make it something they will remember, that you are happy to use every time you tweet about the event.
  • Start as soon as possible. The sooner you begin to use the hashtag to promote, the better. Hype can build for months, and you should get on that train the moment it has been confirmed. Start giving details, releasing info, and using the hashtag sooner rather than later, and you will be in good shape.
  • Do it as often as possible. You don’t have to always provide news updates. Instead, get people involved, make small comments, build the hype, ask opinions, communicate with other Twitter users…anything to generate an opportunity to use that hashtag. Think of it as an official signature from that account.

Conclusion

Twitter is a literal powerhouse for promotion. As it utilizes both a live feed update and search system, and a brilliant viral format for resharing, it is a platform that will give you ample momentum. Hashtags are your tool of choice, and you can really press a lot out of them.

But remember, it is all about doing it right, doing it often and doing it early. So get started today, and let Twitter hashtags do the promoting for you. Your event will be packed.

Jessy is a social media strategist for Life Insurance Finder, the free web-based app to compare life insurance online (no fees, no registration required).