There is a right way and a wrong way to use hashtags on Twitter. This 2016 guide shows the latest techniques for using hashtags to effectively create engagement and build your brand authority.

1. USING HASHTAGS FOR B2B

2. Why bother worrying about
hashtags?
• THEY’RE AN EFFECTIVE WAY
TO REACH BEYOND YOUR
FOLLOWERS, WHICH IS THE
POINT OF MARKETING ON
SOCIAL MEDIA, RIGHT?
• People are 55% more likely
to RT posts with hashtags
• Youcan track which content
is most popular much more
easily when you use
hashtags

3. • When NOT to use a hashtag
• When TO use a hashtag
• When to use other people’s
hashtags
• When to use your own
hashtags
• How to promote hashtags
• How to use hashtags on
other channels besides
Twitter
YOU WILL
LEARN:

4. WHEN NOTTO USE A HASHTAG:
Do not cut short a really good quote or fact in your Tweet
to put in a hashtag. The content of the Tweet should take priority.
Think about it, the hashtag is there to promote your content – not the
other way around.
Do not use hashtags that no one else is using. Just putting a hashtag
on a word, without knowing its relevance, is not effective. Not only will
it not help promote your content, it could have the added effect of
making you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me
show you what I mean:

5. HERE’S SALLY, SHEWANTSTO USE A HASHTAG
Her Tweet is from an article in Forbes:
“These DARPA Darlings Just Raised
$20M To Build A Super-Powered Google
For The Internet Of Things via @forbes”.
Sally has space to
add some hashtags to reach her audience.
Her audience is people who have the power to purchase her
company’s software.
Sally has these ideas - which of these tags should she choose?
#DARPA, #Google, #DOD
#seriesafunding…See next page to find out.

6. NONE, IS THE ANSWER
One of the first things you should do, before you use a
hashtag, is see if others, especially those you follow or are in
your industry, are using it. This can be done with a 2 second
search on Twitter.
These tags she chose are not incorrect, but they are way too
broad to reach a very specific audience who, in Sally’s case -
are CIOs, CTOs or Innovation Executives in large
organizations. How, then, can you find the right hashtags?

7. COMMON SENSE AND CREATIVITY GO A LONG WAY
Be specific. If you use #DARPA, you are going to reach people and businesses
who Tweet about the military or the broad topic of tech. Try searching that tag on
social, you’ll see how broad the audience is.
The first thing you can do is put a hashtag right on that word
#internetofthings or even better #iot. You’ve seen it before, it’s a popular hashtag in your
industry. You do a search for #iot – people you follow– and see #bigdata and
#datasecurity which are topics in the article.
You could use #Google #DOD or #seriesafunding but again, you’d be reaching a very
broad audience. The point of all this is selling a product to your known audience, so you
really want to stay inside your customer base.

8. ALMOSTTHERE…
Once you’ve got #iot #bigdata and #datasecurity in there, you still have room for
more text.
How else can you promote this? Why not tell a little more of the story instead of using
the stock Tweet that Forbes provides. You’re more likely to be ReTweeted. And make
sure to use the writer’s handle. Add him to your list of #iot influencers, and he may even
RT it to his followers! He’s certainly more likely to RT than Forbes will, although if your
Tweet is really great there is always a chance a publication will RT.
I can’t tell you right now which hashtag will work for your business – but you need to
start somewhere. See which hashtags resonate the most with your audience, and use
them accordingly.

9. WHENTO USE A HASHTAG:
Any Tweet can benefit from a hashtag. Statistically, you are more likely
to get ReTweeted with a hashtag. However the opposite proves true with
overuse, misuse or misspelling of hashtags so be careful.
When you load a Tweet with multiple hashtags, the rate of ReTweeting actually
goes down. And if you use hashtags outside of your industrybase, you will get
impressions and engagement from non-relevant parties.
Again, check to see if members of your community use the hashtag before you
try out a new one. You will add no value, and if anything look unprofessional by
using a completely random hashtag. Hashtags are a language, you wouldn’t
walk up to someone with a word you invented, and expect them to understand
you – don’t do the same with a hashtag! Try this exercise – sign into your
account – think about a hashtag you’ve used that you don’t think others have
used – and search for it.

10. USING A HASHTAG NO ONE ELSE USES
So you’re using a hashtag no one else is using to promote your blog or brand(not
conference)? And you’ve been using it since2014?
Time to clean house. Think about why you’re usingit:
• The marketing manager before me usedit
• We thought it was a cool way to promote the brand
• We thought it was a cool way to promote the blog
The thing about a hashtag is that it’s a conversation, and if you’re having it alone –
it’s less of a conversation than a broadcast that no one is listening to. Give it abreak
for now, you could be utilizing more effective characters in your Tweets.
(Really want to keep it? See page 18 )

11. NEWTOYOUR JOB AND NOT SUREWHATYOUR INDUSTRY HASHTAGS ARE?
Ask your team for relevant keywords, and type them into Twitter
• If you have industry lists in your Twitter account, see if any of
influencers use particular hashtags and start to test them out
• If you don’t have lists, jump in and read a bunch of industry articles and if
the writers or the people in the articles are on Twitter, see what hashtags
they use. Keywords will lead you to relevant accounts on Twitter as well.
Check out a few to see what hashtags they use.
• Testand see which hashtags resonate with your audience. Identify 5
relevant hashtags to keep in your arsenal that will always or usually work
with your content. These are usually synonymous with your website
keywords. Don't forget to be open to use others when appropriate, say
you're posting content which is slightly different from your norm but still of
interest to your audience. Note: A hashtag that is popular now will change
as the industry changes.

12. WHENTO USE OTHER PEOPLES’ HASHTAGS
ALL THE TIME. The content you create – whether it’s a white paper or a Tweet –
needs to be crowdsourced to be effective. That means you’re using keyword and
social research to figure out what your personas’ in your industry want and need.
The same thing goes for a hashtag. You want to be joining the conversation as
often as possible and an easy way to do so is using hashtags. So that means
taking the journey we just did to optimize Tweets with hashtags – PLUS keeping an
eye open to new hashtags too. Hashtags can lead you to new people to follow,new
content and eventually new customers.
If you’re ever unsure about a word’s meaning NEVER use it. Wikipedia and
dictionaries are great – but best practices would entail you should check in with your
product team or seasoned sales team member. They may have insight that can
help. Using hashtag that only those “in the know” use can be powerful as only very
relevant people will be usingit.

13. WHENTO USEYOUR OWN HASHTAG
Best Practices are that you should really only “make up” hashtags for conferences or contests.
Hashtags have been around since the late 2000s so I think we all know some ground rules about
creating them:
• Not too long, not more than 2 words strung together is a good rule
• For conference hashtags, using the commonly used acronym for it makes sense.
• For new conference hashtags, if you can actually have a word or what sounds like a word, this is
more effective than multiple consonants strung together
• Using the year in the hashtag – SXSW16 – heightens excitement and interest
• Make sure you’re not using an offensive word
The surprising thing though is that most of us seem to forget one of the most important things about
creating our own conference hashtags – checking to make sure no one else is using them. If you
absolutely need to, it’s probably ok to use a hashtag that a very small, one person company uses for an
event 5 months after yours. If a huge company like Salesforce or Cisco is using it, don’t use their
hashtag - no matter when their event is held.

14. HOWTO PROMOTE HASHTAGS
Live Tweeting updates from live sessions at company events can increase
hashtag use by 40%
ReTweeting all mentions of your conference or brand hashtag both says a big
“Thank You” to those who support you, and creates an awesome buzz in your
Twitter feed.
Promotion: Making sure the hashtag is readily available to everyone on all
channels iscrucial.
Get partners to commit to promoting with you: Work with your team to ask
partners – especially Media partners - for Tweeting commitments as part of
their contracts.

15. HOWTO PROMOTE HASHTAGS
Contests:
There is nothing sadder than a hashtag campaign that never gets promoted or
used. How can we make sure our hashtags get their due?
Hashtag contests (with the goal of simply getting that hashtag used) are a great
way to promote events, and ultimately promote your brand. Here’s a way you
can get really creative and have fun. Here are several ideas to promote your
hashtag, whether it’s a contest or a hashtag you really want to make your own.

16. 3 WAYSTO PROMOTEYOUR UNIQUE HASHTAG:
1) Prizes: Be unique and relevant to your audience
• If you’re asking someone to use a hashtag, give something in return. Offer a
prize that is relevant to your products or services in some way. A free iPad
is unlikely to generate long term gains or brand engagement unless your
company offers iPad related products or services!
• Partner with a company, product or service that has a buzz or some relevance
to your audience for your prize.
• The more creative, unusual and interesting your contest is, the more likely you
can cross promote to your media list for more promotion. For example, an
industry publication will not write about a Free iPad you’re giving away, but if
we create a cool infographic and have an interesting prize with a contest no
one else has ever done before in the biotech space– they, and others, may
take notice.

17. 3 WAYSTO PROMOTEYOUR UNIQUE HASHTAG:
2) Give them a compelling reason to use it!
• You need to curate conversations on social, they don’t just “happen”. Just Tweeting
one Tweet (or sending out one email): “Tell us your story” is unlikely to get much
traction, even with a really good prize. Buzz usually doesn’t just happen, it needs to
be crafted.
• Brainstorm an interesting, very specific angle, create graphics and quotable social
posts around your hashtag contest. Commission (or otherwise acquire) 3 social
media influencers in your industry to tell their story to set up the buzz and begin
use of the hashtag to entice others. Others will follow, as they will want to be part of
the group and not miss out on the conversation. And as always, make sure you’re
promoting the hashtag in emails, on all social channels and in signage.

18. 3WAYSTO PROMOTEYOUR UNIQUE HASHTAG:
3) Is your hashtag using you instead of the other way around?
• So on slide 10 you did the exercise and realized you’ve been Tweeting a unique hashtag for
your blog or your brand and adding it to your Twitter posts for a while – it hasn’t quite caught
on. #awsmsoftware
• What were your original intentions in using this tag? Did you want to have a unique brand
imprint on Twitter besides your handle? Unfortunately it’s kind of chicken and egg – the
hashtag no one uses will not help promote your blog or your brand like a commonly used
hashtag will. You will have to use your blog or your brand to promote the hashtag – not the
other way around - and then possibly it can become a “household word” at least among your
audience.
• Optimize your posts, and once you get more impressions, mentions and ReTweets people
will be excited to spread the word about your blog or your brand, and use those specific
hashtags. Make sure you’re heavily promoting the hashtag on your blog and other channels.
• In the short term, it is much more effective to keep to using common industry hashtags and
your conference hashtag. However, if you have the time and inspiration to create your own
unique hashtag and promote it – in the long term it has potential for branding.

19. 3 THINGSTO REMEMBER ABOUT HASHTAGS#
• Use your followers, those you follow and influencers to source the
correct hashtags for your industry.
• A hashtag will only help promote your content if it is commonly used by
those in your industry. Creating a new hashtag has no immediate effect to
helping your Tweet, takes up valuable Twitter real estate, and in fact will
require you to promote the hashtag outside Twitter to be at all effective.
• Hashtags are very powerful. People are 55% more likely to RT your post
if it uses a hashtag. By the same token, using hashtags incorrectly - ie.
just slapping a pound sign on a word without thinking it through and
proper research - may actually decrease your chance of getting
engagement.

20. USING HASHTAGS ON FACEBOOK, GOOGLE+ & PINTEREST
• Youcan search for popular
hashtags in Facebook, Google
Plus and Pinterest and use
them there as well.
• Using hashtags on Facebook
is one of the only ways to
reach outside your audience
without paid ads. However
they are not proven to have
significant impact.

21. USING HASHTAGS ON INSTAGRAM
• You can search for popular
hashtags on Instagram and
use them there as well.
• Best practices is 10-15
hashtags. Here I searched
“#iot”.
• Posts with 11 hashtags get
the highest engagement on
Instagram.

22. HOWTO USE HASHTAGS ON INSTAGRAM
• Identify 10-15 relevant hashtags. Click relevant
images, follow the person that posted the
media and like a couple of their most recent
pictures. Repeat this process for as many
media posts as you can.
• What this does is create engagement
between you and them. The goal is to have
them see this activity, and peak their curiosity.
It should lead to them to view your profile, it it
seems like something they are interested in
they will most likely follow you back.
• If you have created your profile in a way that
represents your your brand and shows what
you do, they will naturally view your products.