In the year 2010, it is safe to say the brands who are NOT using Twitter as a communication tool have either decided it is not for their product or they just don’t get it.  It is so wonderful to see brands embracing social media, and it’s even more exciting when they embrace the culture and community.  Not every brand is comfortable communicating with their community on their community terms.  However, speaking to your audience in their own language and adopting their culture is very important to be able to properly get the message delivered.  By doing this, brands have acquired the sense of being “tangible” and “friendly,” making the consumer comfortable to engage and participate.

Hashtags are tags used in short messages that are either a single term or multiple words concatenated. They are a very important staple within the Twitter culture.

When to Start a Branded Hashtag

1.  When you have a clever tagline or question for a campaign.  For example;  ”Relax in bed and read a book #SlipperTime“

2. When you have a question the audience will want to answer.

When NOT to Start a Hashtag:

1.  If you are trying to start a trend by creating a hashtag that will have no value in being used multiple times.

2.  If the hashtag would be valuable for competitors’ brands.

When to Use Popular Hashtags:

1.  When your brand can contribute to the community or be humorous.  For example: “Don’t Forget The Mayo #4wordsaftersex“

2. When your brand can contribute to current and popular events.

Where to Begin

There are a few sites that analyze trending topics and hashtags.

Because hashtags within Twitter are typical meta tags, they can be collected and analyzed after a campaign.  This will be really helpful in determining the success of a campaign that exists within Twitter.