As a Customer Success Strategist at TrueLoyal, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some pretty awesome brands and organizations. Some are smaller, like the Bubble Foundation, whose hashtag #WearYellowForSeth generated 107 Million impressions in a single day. Some are bigger, like iHeartMedia, whose #iHeartRadio generated 7 Billion impressions during the festival weekend earlier this month. While there’s no formula for the perfect hashtag, there are a few key things you can do to supercharge your next campaign. Let’s get into it:

1) Make Your Hashtag Actionable

 We’re living in a world of hashtag overload… they’re everywhere. It’s not enough to just have a hashtag anymore, it needs to mean something and prompt action to generate engagement. A great example is Red Bull’s #PutACanOnIt, which was originally inspired by a clever photographer holding a can above a Mini Cooper.

Red Bull’s team quickly saw the opportunity and launched the campaign, which spread like wildfire and ended up winning the prestigious “Best Use of a Hashtag” Shorty Award. Well done Red Bull, well done.

2) Get Key Influencers to Participate

There’s no faster way to spread your message than through key influencers. For example, Ashton Kutcher and William Shatner helped spread #WearYellowForSeth to their combined 19 million followers on Twitter.

How do you get a key influencer to post with your hashtag? Well, you start by asking. Tweet at them, @mention them on Instagram, and get creative! It is typically not a huge investment of time on their part, so the key is to get their attention.

 3) Engage With Your Audience

Social media gives people a way to engage with the brands they love. Reciprocate that love and show them you care 🙂

Taco Bell is great at this, they respond to pretty much every tweet:

Showing your audience that you’re listening, and you care, can really make all the difference.