If Hashtags were a Language

With the festivities around the corner in full swing as we head towards September, social media is there in full force, and the masses are focusing heavily on their #hashtagging. With much of the world’s attention fixed firmly on the the different awards shows, festivals and celebrations, hashtagging has become ever more prevalent as a way for everyone to participate by tweeting about the action using a  particular #hashtag most relevant to the them. But it’s the “right” hashtag that happens to be the dilemma at the forefront of the debate: do hashtags do more harm than good? Fortunately, for sport that is not so much the case but there are other incidents where a hashtag has caused headaches for a brand. Here, we are going to take a look at sport’s teams and other brands that are using hashtags to garner positive, and sometimes negative, fan participation throughout the Twitter-sphere.

What is a Hashtag?

  Hashtags on Twitter are used by tweeps to:

- dentify a team’s fan base, such hashtags that team’s fans can use are #gopies, #goeagles and #ridemcowboys
- Hashtags can be used to drive promotions or competitions
- They can also drive the conversation amongst casual fans with hashtags like, #thevoiceau, #auspol, #masterchef and #afldogscats
- Funny meme – #replacemovie

The examples above are good examples of how hashtags can help a company’s social media campaign work. But, we have seen some fails in regards to hashtags, such as with #QantasLuxury that backfired immensely on Qantas Airways.

Recently, State of Origin also had it’s troubles with no directive from the NRL for fans to use a specific hashtag so many ended up being used, diluting the effectiveness of having a well-prepared hashtag for engagement with fans.

And can you imagine if Hashtags were a language? Here are some possible scenarios..