The use of #hashtags in Events

Nowadays, we are surrounded by the New Technologies of Information and Communication (NTIC), and social media, defined, as "Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” by Oxford Dictionaries. Plenty of social media exist, nevertheless one of them particularity has been spread into other social media. Obviously, we are speaking about Twitter, and its hashtags.

A hashtag is "a word or phrase proceeded by a hash sign (#), used on social media to identify messages on a specific topic" (Oxford Dictionaries). For the event industry, hashtags have become a perfect way to identify an event, and to enhance interactions before, during and after the event. In this paper, we focus on the use of hashtags in the events, its pros and cons, and we provide some tips for using them successfully.

thesocialmediabloke.com

#TheProsOfHashtags Social media are a new way of doing marketing, sales, public relations, and customer service. They are ever more used in events and through them events' organizers want to build a community and a relationship with the attendees. As written by Julius Solaris, Cathy Key and Traci Browne in Social Media for Event (2014), the purpose is to "marry your audience".

Hashtags are particularly efficient for the following reasons:

- They are original and unique.

-They are scalable, for instance you can indicate de year "#exhibition14 for the 2014 exhibition, and "# exhibition15" for the 2015 one.

- They are short. Writing "Increase in international Travel Technology exhibitor’s “#itbberlin" instead of "At the ITB Berlin, we notice an increase in international Travel Technology exhibitors" is pertinent when the number of characters is limited, such as in Twitter (Maximum of 140 characters per update).

- They are clickable, so you can bring all the event content and conversations all together and have maximal cross channel compatibility. Thus events' organizers can use them as promotional tool for your event.

#TheConsOfHastags

Similarly to social media in general, hashtags should not be used if previous researches about our target, to know if they use social media, twitter and hashtags, have not been done.

A lack of time and human resources can lead to incorrect assessment of needs, unclear objectives, and badly written tweets, causing attendee's disappointment, negative attitude towards social media & technology, and creating backlash as they will speak negatively about the event. It can also prevent us from doing in depth analysis.

moozup.com

#TipsToWiselyUseHastags As for the use of every social media, research on your target should be done, and hashtags should be used only if it matches the attendees' habit to do so. Therefore their use depends on the target market. Although it is a cheap media; human, time and financial resources should be allocated to it. It should be part of a social media program, and the content plan should contain a hashtag strategy. Do not forget that the hashtag used defines the event. The hashtags are useful some types of events and appreciated by the attendees like for seminars, product launches, sport events, exhibitions and trade shows. Also the social media customer service team needs to be alert and responsive.

According to Julius Solaris and Al, events' organizers should use hashtags:

-Before the event, to benchmark, to market and to ensure consumer service;

-During the event, to engage attendees, to improve networking, to manage customer service issues, to direct attendees to relevant content and  to gather attendees feedbacks in real time;

-After the event, to continue marketing, engaging and gathering feedbacks.

A system should be monitored so the event's planners can measure their effectiveness as a Return On Investment (ROI). Attendees will remember their last experience thanks to this interaction and this merger through the hashtag and the social media.

#OurOpinion

The use of hashtag is powerful tool to promote an event and to make it attractive. As they are becoming more and more popular, it is important for event planners to be familiar with Information Technology (IT) and the use of social media. Nevertheless, the decision of using them must be well thought out. It will depend on the event's target, and not everybody is at ease with social media, or even has a Smartphone. In some destinations, the needed technology may not even be available.

tweetallpro.com

Charline Hery & Claire Russo

Source:

Solaris, J., Key, K., & Browne, T. (2014). Social Media for Event, Retrieved from http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/social-media-events-free-ebook

Fach M., (2015). Social Media Management Tips for Conferences, AuthorityLabs, Retrieved from http://snip.ly/ozTq#http://authoritylabs.com/blog/social-media-management-tips-conferences/