You can’t expect to host a successful event unless people talk about it. Thanks to the advent of social media, however, it’s now easier than ever to generate “buzz” for an event or party. But if you really want to draw attention and visibility to your event, you should promote it with a #hashtag.
What are #Hashtags?
Originally pioneered by the social media network Twitter, hashtags are words or phrases (without spaces) preceded by the hash/pound sign used to categorize content with a specific topic. When you post new content on social media, you can include one or more hashtags to increase its exposure. When someone searches for one of these hashtags, they’ll find your post and any other posts containing the respective hashtag.
Unique
If you promote your event using a hashtag that’s already been used for something, it may confuse users who search for your event on social media. To prevent this from happening, head over to Twitter and see if your preferred hashtags has been used. If it has, you’ll need to choose a different one. Hashtags must be unique; otherwise, irrelevant content that’s not associated with your event will appear when users search for it.
Short
While hashtags are used in other social media networks, they’ve become a staple feature of Twitter. And being that Twitter limits tweets to just 140 characters, you’ll need to keep your hashtags short to maximize their visibility. Of course, short hashtags are also easier to remember than long ones. Guests may forget your event’s hashtag if it’s to long. Keeping it short, however, all but eliminates this problem.
Relevant Name
A good hashtag should also feature a relevant, meaningful name. If you’re planning a corporate end-of-summer party, for instance, perhaps you could use #XZYSummerParty,” or “XZYEndofSummer” replacing “XZY” with your company’s name. It’s short, unique and accurately describes the event.
Case Caps
Most social media networks use non-case-sensitive hashtags, but it’s still a good idea to capitalize the first letter of each word. Hashtags don’t support spaces, so multiple words blend together when the letters are all lower or upper case. Using case caps — capitalizing the first letter of each word — improves the readability of your hashtag
Promoting Your #Hashtag
Hashtags only work if your target audience knows about them. So, try to include your hashtag on all promotional material related to your event, including direct mail, email, social media posts, presentations, etc. You can even encourage guests/attendees to upload photos and videos from your event using the same hashtag.