What’s the secret to a great event hashtag?

Hashtags are an important feature of any social media strategy.  According to research by Twitter, tweets with one or more hashtags can increase engagement by almost 100%.

It’s easy to see why skilful use of hashtags can raise the awareness and the visibility of your events.

Having a hashtag for your event is useful from a content marketing standpoint. But it is also useful for social media analytics and metrics, because it centralises all the online discussion about your event.

So how do you choose an event hashtag?

• Unique – if your event’s hashtag is generic or commonly used, your event will get muddled with other unrelated tweets.

• Relevant – Your hashtag should reflect what your event is about accurately and succinctly

• Short – despite Twitter changing the character count rules, short hashtags are still king. The longer your hashtag, the fewer characters followers have to comment about your event. Shorter hashtags are also easier to remember.

• Memorable – if your attendees can’t remember your hashtag it’s useless and needs changing

Example of a successful event hashtag:

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the games industry’s biggest exhibition simply used the hashtag #E32016 for this year’s event – simple, unique, memorable and relevant.

This tweet with a photo and just the hashtag for text got over 100 shares.

#E32016pic.twitter.com/2PBLN4fs3G

— E3 (@E3) 16 June 2016

When and where should I start using my event hashtag?

You should be using your event’s hashtag in the build-up to the event, during it, and in the aftermath.

Your hashtag should be included in all social promotions of your event, especially on twitter. Create your hashtag as soon as possible to get the social buzz going. Promote your hashtag and include it on all your promotional materials and comms.

Twitter’s research also shows that posting a concentrated number of Tweets in a short timespan can increase follower growth 50% more than average.

This means live-tweeting and posting updates about an event using your hashtag is a simple way to grow followers and increase interaction on social media.

After the event, writing digital thank you cards for your attendees is a good way to keep the conversation going – so make sure you are using your hashtag there too!

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Formative Content’s team of experienced journalists and marketers will help you build the reputation of your brand. Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. office@formativecontent.com Tel: +44 (0) 20 7206 2687

Adam Shirley is a Content Producer at Formative Content and specialises in digital content and writing for social media.

Formative Content is a UK based communications agency producing high quality content, live event coverage and strategic communications support for clients.