Corporate hashtags – is big brother watching?

I was reading this article about whether hashtags  are useful and I knew you would find it interesting because we have talked about hashtags before – notably here.

And it put me in mind of a phenomenon I have come across recently -  the Big Brother hashtag. This is a corporate hashtag that allow enormous organisations to keep in touch – not as you might imagine, with what is being said by others about their brand – but with insiders, who work for or with them.

The very large company I am thinking of goes in for social media in a big way. All praise to the way they have embraced it and everything it can do to spread the message worldwide. Checking out their name on either Twitter or Facebook brings up not just one account, but literally dozens for each branch of the organisations work and each country where it operates. As someone who usually works in small business this is BIG.

So far so good. But the thing which worries me, is the suggestion that all arms of this spider, including the smaller partners, should tag their tweets with an array of tags which allows them to be tracked by the powers unseen. In some instances I have seen tweets laden down with hashtags including the company name, the product name and the name of a forum or conference they are attending. The result is something very unattractive, unreadable and un-re-tweetable!

My conclusion, as the rebel in the corner, is that social media has to be useful and when big corporations get involved sometimes clarity and simplicity go out of the window.

I would advocate getting that clarity and simplicity back. So let’s use the corporate hashtag in moderation and where appropriate. Big brother really does not need to see small partner companies shooting the breeze with new clients, although perhaps if they did, they would learn a few things about social media? 

 

E-mail header – where it all begins

We have been talking about headlines and hashtags on the blog recently and I have been thinking about how that works when we are creating and sending out newsletters/e-shots.

Good strong headlines compel people to read content - but if they don’t ever open the e-shot then it will all have been for nothing.

The e-mail header suddenly becomes even more important than the newsletter itself and the same goes for any kind of pitch, including press releases and blogger outreach. When you are calling on the phone you can charm the gatekeepers into putting you through or give them a compelling reason to do so, but with an e-mail e-shot you have only a handful of words to get the job done.

So it stands to reason that we really need to think about those words. I started by thinking long form – what is it that I wanted to say? Then bashing it down into as few words as possible. It is a great creative exercise!

But this wasn’t going to be enough to get the click. So then I thought about key words, as if I was working out the key triggers for optimising a piece of text. What gets me to open? Well I favour words like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn coupled with words like explained or common mistakes. Top twitter mistakes or new changes explained would probably get me every time!  So now I need to work out the triggers for my e-shot audience.

With the trigger words in mind I now move on to the final killer stage. I am going to list my e-shot content as a string of very short teasers. If I give them three then at least one will hit the spot! I won’t reveal all, but the words sales and secrets and top job may feature.

So how do you get people to open up? It would be great to share in your ideas.

Is it ok to market to a niche group on twitter?

I have recently experienced the joys of talking utter nonsense with a bunch of people I have never met before. If you’ve not done it I highly recommend it!

By using hashtags on Twitter you can connect with thousands of people who share your obsession – which is especially useful when your real friends don’t  want to know!

For me, it was the Danish detective drama The Killing that got me into it – 20 hours of idiosyncratic crime noir with subtitles that I couldn’t stop consuming until it was all gone. The show finished at the weekend and Twitter was alive with fans preparing Danish-themed dinners in the hours running up to the big finale, sharing theories about who done it and discussing the clothing of its  stars.

So many people gathered together around one topic – that is a niche audience to die for! So is it ok to market to a niche group like this on twitter?

Companies trying to exploit twitter hash tags – by which I mean the groups of people who coalesce to tweet around one topic using the # symbol – have had a very bad press recently and rightly so.

There have been a couple of examples where corporate tweeters have hi-jacked disaster or breaking news hashtags to promote their products. This would have been poor judgement if they were trying to sell something relevant like tents for example, but in these instances the products had absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed! That strikes me as beyond tasteless and a fundamental misunderstanding of how to market using social media. Read all about those cases here.

So, would it be ok to market to people gathered together around something less controversial – like sport for example?

I think it is a judgement call and each person is going to draw their line in a slightly different place – but I think it is important that a line is drawn.

I, for example, can’t stand being put on a mailing list just because I have exchanged cards with someone at a networking event. You may say that in taking your card I have shown an interest, I may say that I was only being polite.

The key is being relevant and non intrusive. If a product has a perfect fit with the topic – if it something that a number of the group will actually want, then you are providing a benefit and not intruding.

For example, my Danish cop drama has a charismatic central character who wears Nordic woollen jumpers – they are central to the cult of the show. If I was a supplier of these jumpers, then I think it would be perfectly legitimate for me to let fans know how to get hold of one and to post a link to my website.  Equally, if I were going to knit them to order in time for season two, then Saturday night would have been the perfect time to get the word out  while all those fans were preparing to watch the final episode – filled with sadness and a big jumper sized hole in their lives!

I think it helps to be a genuine fan and a natural fit for the group you are talking to – perhaps someone who would be using the hashtag anyway. Nothing smells worse than an interloper coming in with the intent to exploit. People can sense when you are not genuine. If you are going to target sports fans, be one yourself and let people know about useful stuff, in the same way you use Twitter to pass on useful content.

So, my conclusion?

Using hashtags to deliver marketing messages to a receptive audience can work really well with a tight fit but it comes with a risk. Can your brand live with being branded a charlatan if you get it wrong?

Would you risk it?

 

Are You Hosting Your Own Twitter Party?

Do you have a product so exclusive that you don’t want anyone to know about it?

No? Then you need social media.

Talking, communicating and building a following are all important elements of making your brand a success.

If you are struggling with the idea, it might help to think about Twitter as a party. As host you get to choose all the important stuff, so if its high end with champagne and canapes you want, then set it up that way.

First,

• Your Twitter page is your own and you can arrange it as you please. Think of it as a room with furnishings. Choose colours and backgrounds that reflect your brand. Write your biography in a way that creates the right vibe; authoritative,exclusive, human, fun?
• Next you can decide on the cultural atmosphere, the equivalent of coffee table magazines and books on the shelf. So that is the publications that you follow, along with the thought and industry leaders you admire. If we are to be judged by the company we keep then this is a chance to display our taste in whom we follow. It might just be which comedians we find funny or which sports stars we like.
• Finally you invite your guests to come in and join you so the conversation can begin.

As with any party, you set the tone, invite the guests and create the atmosphere but what happens next may be unpredictable.

But don’t forget you can unfollow people at any point or even block them if they do serious damage to your brand. I have never had any problem with swearing in my Twitter stream, but obviously if that become an issue then you might want to let the worst offenders go.

Your Twitter stream is your party, but of course we are all both hosts and guests. It’s like a whole bunch of parties happening at the same time and in parallel universes.

You can reach across the void by using hash tags eg#marketing or #tennis to talk about a specific topic and when you put @ in front of someone’s name their friends will see that too. If you like the conversation over there, then join it.

Have you been to any good Twitter parties lately? (They were probably all talking about work again.)