Within user content campaigns, hashtags serve two main purposes:
- Enable a user to conveniently submit their brand-inspired content from within a social app (e.g. Instagram);
- Inform a user’s audience of the content’s connection to a brand, and thus implicitly convey the user’s support of the brand.
Brand hashtags are best suited to achieve these purposes if they are easy to input, easy to read, and clearly communicate the brand. Also beneficial is when the hashtag doesn’t seem salesy, and instead matches the casual, clever, lighthearted elements of many social networks, which thus portrays the content as authentic and not incentive-driven (e.g. #BrandXSweepstakes).
Below are examples of simple brand hashtags that communicate the brand without seeming too salesy.
#Maxxinista (T.J. Maxx)
#Maxxinista is a clever blend of T.J. Maxx and fashionista, and thus implies that the user is fashionable and uses T.J. Maxx to help achieve this fashion sense.
#Amtrakgram (Amtrak)
#Amtrakgram was the hashtag for a summer Amtrak photo contest, in which users were challenged to submit inspiring pictures from their Amtrak train for the chance to win free travel vouchers. Amtrakgram borrows from Instagram lingo like regram and latergram, which positions the hashtag as a playful creation of the user instead of an incentivized social challenge.
#JeepSummer (Jeep)
Jeep challenged users to submit pictures of themselves enjoying summer with their Jeeps to #JeepSummer, for the chance to win a Jeep Wrangler and other prizes. Instead of sounding like a promotion hashtag, #JeepSummer conveys the user’s appreciation for their Jeep and all the adventure it enables.
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