Follow Me! Creating a Personal Brand with Twitter

Chapter 10

Beyond Hashtags: Make Your Brand a Trending Topic

“None will sweat but for promotion.”

As You Like It

Girls may prefer diamonds, but hashtags are undoubtedly a tweet’s best friend. They are the little promoters that grab your followers’ attention and lead them back to your latest and greatest post.

“Need a great #inspirational #quote? Here’s one for you!” they exclaim. “Looking for information on #Superbowl #tickets? Then follow me!”

A carefully thought-out hashtag can significantly amplify the social audience reach of any tweet you send.

But how do you effectively use hashtags on Twitter to link and draw people to your conversations?

Well, let’s start with the basics. When you place the # symbol before a word, phrase, or abbreviation on Twitter, it creates a mini conversation that can be looked up and followed. Hashtags organize tweets by conversation and raise the online visibility of brands, events, promotions, and more. The more exposure your tweets have on Twitter, the more opportunities you have of building a large and quality following for your personal brand.

But is there any scientific research to support their effectiveness in raising a brand profile?

Well, yes! In 2011, marketing solutions company LevelWing looked at almost 450 tweeted messages for three Twitter handles over one month, comparing the clickthrough rates of tweets with hashtags to a website, ...