I have been writing for Hipmunk, a travel booking company that gives awesome city and hotel reviews, with excellent deals for every destination. The experience has been so much fun, and I have admired their #HipmunkCityLove campaign on Twitter. Their campaign encourages everyone to share their favorite cities they have traveled to, or what they love about their own city. Not only is it fun to share, but people who are looking for their next escape get a real look at what makes each destination so great!
The #HipmunkCityLove campaign made me think about other great hashtag campaigns. Every brand wants to start an excellent hashtag campaign that captures interest, commentary, and shares of its target audience. Many times, these hashtags flop miserably. This raises the question: what makes up a great hashtag campaign? Here are three examples of great hashtags from brands, and why they were successful.
#soirritating
Unlike many hashtag campaigns that brands start, Edge Shave Gel started the #soirritating hashtag without any real mention of their brand name or product description. They pointed out how irritating it was to get razor burn and other nuisances from bad razors or shaving gel. They invited everyone else on Twitter to post what irritated them the most, even unrelated to shaving!
Edge even tried to solve their problems by sending people different products to make their irritation go away. For example, one woman said her husband refusal to wear his hearing aid was #soirritating. In response, Edge sent her a megaphone to use to speak with him.
The brand realized you could not have much conversation around shaving, and social media is all about talking. Opening their brand to allow the audience to share irritations about their day or life, gave them many new customers. Much like having a friend complain about aspects of life, these followers became forever fans of the shaving gel company.
#kindofabigdeal
To celebrate their partnership with Verizon Wireless, RadioShack hosted a hashtag campaign titled #kindofabigdeal. What made this hashtag unique was that RadioShack conducted it in real-time! RadioShack placed a bunch of Verizon phones on a table. Anytime someone Tweeted with the #kindofabigdeal hashtag, the phones would vibrate in response. All the vibration caused a phone to fall of the table and the Tweeter that caused that last vibration won the phone. Not only did people win a free phone by participating, both brands received a ton of Tweets and attention.
#tweetfromtheseat
Thanks to that little fudge pile emoticon on so many phones these days, talking about “bathroom time” has become the norm. Charmin, makers of crazy-soft toilet paper, took advantage of the open bathroom conversation with their hashtag #tweetfromtheseat. They encouraged people to start Tweeting during their regular bathroom schedule with the hashtag, and it had a great response!
The hashtag did so well because Charmin took advantage of their fun and quirky brand personality to create a campaign. The language is full of funny doublespeak and insinuations, all the while telling their audience to take an action (which they gladly did!). What made it more successful was the six best potty Tweets using the hashtag won tickets to the Superbowl.
Each of these campaigns introduced innovation into the hashtag world. These campaigns were not simply asking people to talk about something. Instead, they did something different in a space that social media conversations do not happen in.
HSW Digital and Social Marketing 