Easy to remember/communicate

[bappy8]

At large events, a phenomenon that has been known for some time is the use of hashtags to ensure that all social media expressions are easy to find and are connected to each other. In the past year, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, other ministries and the Chamber of Commerce, conducted an online campaign in which we did not put ourselves, but entrepreneurs in the spotlight. The use of a central hashtag was very successful, we would like to share our experiences with you.


The reason: in July 2016, the Netherlands was declared the innovation leader in Europe. That was the moment for us to start the online campaign #NLinnovatief. This campaign features great examples that show that (and why) the Netherlands is a leader in innovation. This was also the implicit message. The goal was to reach, inspire and invite others to share their examples as well. Ultimately, the reach was 15 million and we saw around 25,000 likes and retweets. We are most proud of the 750 Twitter users who started using the hashtag and shared great examples.

We have chosen this hashtag very carefully. If you want to launch a new hashtag because you want to build your own community, how do you go about it? We have summarized our experience in choosing the right hashtag in the list below: the hashtag check.

Hashtag check
Before you start: check if the hashtag you have in mind already exists/is in use, as a hashtag and/or as a job function email database username. If so: will it cause confusion if you use it too? Do you want to be associated with the existing tweets/person?

Hashtag check
A powerful hashtag is:

appealing
recognizable
as original as possible (check accounts too): avoid wrong associations. When using an existing hashtag you disrupt the conversation and/or your tweets get lost in a stream of other tweets and you don't reach your target group.
short and sweet: leave room for your message
clearly
Positive, proud: something you want to share, something you want to belong to.
Inviting
Does not contain punctuation: if a punctuation mark is present, the hashtag will be truncated .
The hashtag as the beating heart of the campaign
Of course, a well-chosen hashtag is not enough. Every campaign needs a good campaign strategy, in which all components have been carefully considered, such as goal, timing, choice of resources and channels, analysis and adjustment.