How to create a hashtag for your contest or giveaway

Carles Bonfill
Carles Bonfill
Creating a hashtag seems simple, but to ensure a really successful Twitter and Instagram campaign, it is worth bearing in mind some aspects that are outlined in this article.

What is a hashtag?

  • Hash is the English word for this sign: #
  • Tag is another word for label.

So a Hashtag is a chain of characters made up of one or various words linked together and proceeded by the hash symbol.

What do we create hashtag for?

For associating a message with a particular theme in a way that enables us to organize information; the use of the hashtag enables us to locate information by searching for a particular word or phrase.

Mention + Hashtag

How to create a hashtag

When choosing and creating a hashtag, it’s worth remembering some things that will help you achieve greater effectiveness both in Twitter and Instagram.

  • The hashtag should be short: The shorter the better. This is so that users can type it quickly and interact more efficiently. In Twitter, for example, you have only 140 characters, so the longer the hashtag, the less space you or your users have left to communicate.
  • Legible and easy to remember: Keep in mind that users are going to have to memorize it in order to tweet with it, so make it easy to remember. Although hashtags are not case sensitive, we recommend that you use CamelCase or capitalization in a position other than at the start of the word. In this way, you separate the words visually and make them easier to read and understand. Look at the difference:

Eg.: #christmaslottery –> #ChristmasLottery

  • Original and unique: If it’s a very obvious hashtag it has probably been used before, so you need to make sure you choose the right one for your campaign. In this way you can ensure that your information doesn’t get mixed up with something else that happens to have the same hashtag.
  • It should be contextualized: It’s important that the hashtag makes sense within the context of the message and the campaign. It’s pointless having a really original hashtag if it seems to have nothing to do with the campaign, as this will only end up confusing the user.
  • Avoid non-standard characters: We suggest that the hashtag contain no spaces, accents or umlauts. There are many programs that can be integrated with Twitter and Instagram, and each program may use these symbols differently. For example, Twitter is capable of providing results to a #hashtag search that ignores accents, etc. but Instagram is not. To avoid any duplication of data and to guarantee the number of times your hashtag has been used, it’s best to avoid introducing these characters.

4. Using hashtags in contests and promotions

Below are some final tips about the use of hashtags in Facebook contests and promotions:

  • Use the space provided for the Promotion description to display the hashtag and encourage your fans to take part in the promo.
  • It’s also worth including it in the main image and in all material publicizing the promotion.
  • Display the hashtag in all contest communications: via Facebook, Twitter, mailing, etc.
  • Don’t create a hashtag with spaces, accents or umlauts.

Once the campaign has ended, it’s important to evaluate the impact and results of having used your chosen hashtag. It’s worth keeping in mind these conclusions when planning future actions, as they may help you do things even better next time.

Hashtags are very useful tools on social networks like Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, or TikTok. However, they are not commonly used on Facebook.

5. Do you want to create your own Twitter and Instagram campaign?

Create a hashtag gallery to import photo and video posts from Instagram that include a specific hashtag. You can embed the gallery on your website or Facebook page. Find out how to create your hashtag contest with the Easypromos Mention + Hashtag app. You can also try the mention + hashtag contest DEMO to see how it works and how the public gallery displays the images posted by users on their profiles.

Here’s an example of a Mention+Hashtag campaign by La Lechera. Participants had to upload a picture of their creation with the hashtag #RetoTartadeGalletas (#CookiePieChallenge) and mention the brand @LaLechera

You can also grow your follower base and make your content go viral with social media giveaways. Their potential will blow you away!

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