Hashtag Hijacks - New York Police Department Faces Hashtag Embarrassment

The NYPD recently tweeted requests for local New Yorkers to post photos of themselves with members of the police force, using the hashtag #myNYPD. Predictably though, the news feed promptly filled with images and videos of questionable police practice and brutality in what has become a true failure of a marketing campaign, leaving a lot to be answered for by the men in blue. 

Source: thehigherlearning.com

The unfortunate hashtag hijacking has inspired people around the US to tweet photos of other police departments abusing citizens. Twitter users have shown images of brutality from the LAPD and Chicago forces, whilst European countries join the growing enthusiasm in highlighting malpractice. 

Occupy Wall Street tweeted ‘Free Massages from the #NYPD. What does YOUR Police Department offer?’ accompanied with an image showing officers holding a man, shouting, with his arms pinned behind his back against a car. 

According to the New York Daily News over 70,000 people had taken to Twitter criticising the NYPD, with #myNYPD overtaking #HappyEarthDay as the top trending hashtag. 

Source: nbc.com

Hashtags, when used positively, can be a really useful way of tracking the current and popular interest of people and to see what is being talked about. Twitter has long supported clickable hashtags, with Facebook users also deploying the technique for debates, discussion and fun. Clicking on a hashtag takes users to see what other people have said about the same topic, encouraging interaction and activity. Advertisers saw a great opportunity to build brand awareness and receive feedback from their consumers. The key to a successful hashtag however, is understanding your audience and how they are going to use said hashtag.

Twitter has become a place where activists and protestors are influencing politics and power structures all over the world. The NYPD Twitter campaign was well-intentioned, but crucially not well-researched.

Using social media listening tools like Viralheat and Social Mention, which provide a sentiment analysis of mentions across various sites, would have been a good place to start. Your typical Twitter user (young urban males) may not have been the best place to find positive attitudes and responses to New York’s police department. 

Source: niceone.ie

Stubbornly (or in the interests of free speech), the NYPD Commissioner said the campaign will continue despite the negative feedback. So far, the NYPD have retweeted only a handful of photos of people with members of the police department. It’s safe to say the campaign was a social media and public relations failure.

The lesson here is that social media can be a powerful tool - but just because you create a hashtag doesn’t mean you own it. 

The NYPD’s social media fail was reminiscent of another recent Twitter debacle.  Here's some other memorable mishaps:  

#WhyImVotingUKIP – Twitter users went to town on the controversial political party recently, quipping, with reference to Farage’s claims that he was 'tired out' when he said he wouldn’t want to live next door to Romanians, that they were voting ‘because, like the leader @Nigel_Farage, I get a bit racist when I’m tired too’. 

In 2012, McDonald's created the #McDstories hashtag, asking customers to share their favorite McDonald's memories. The campaign was pulled after just two hours as it descended into food-horror stories about fingernails, insects and food poisoning. 

Then there was of course the infamous #susanalbumparty disaster. No more needs to be said on that.

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Top 10 Tips to Tweeting and Twitter

Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide and currently has more than 100 million users worldwide. Described as the "SMS of the Internet", Twitter is a social networking website that enables it's users to communicate with their audience by microblogging. It can be used as a marketing tool, but you must do it right by following the Twitter etiquette in order to be effective.



Tweet often 

Try to tweet as often as you can to keep our audience hooked. We recommend that you tweet at least once a day to get the best results.

Add short links in your tweets

Adding links to your website will drive traffic through to your site, however with only 140 characters it’s important to use a short URL , may sites can do this for you for free such as http://tinyurl.com.

Follow the top twitters 

Twitter will suggest people as you set up your account; this will help your profile increase as you can be seen by all their followers and they may follow you.  To find out who the top twitters are go to http://twitterholic.com.
Add the link to your twitter feed to your communications
Spread the word about your tweets by adding the link to your website and email communication etc, this will allow people to keep up to date with your news.

Use # tags

Hashtags are a convention for adding content / metadata to your tweets, and are the most popular topics on Twitter.  To add a new hashtag you just put # in front of the word e.g. #alchemy.  For more information on them # tags http://twitter.pbworks.com/Hashtags.

Get involved in the trending topics 

These are the most popular stories on Twitter, they can be found on the right hand side of the homepage joining in conversations on these topics will help increase you exposure.

Ask your followers to retweet your posts 

Your followers retweeting your posts will mean your message is seen by their followers, introducing you to a new audience, this is likely to increase your followers.

Add pictures / photographs

Adding pictures is a great way to engage interest.  You can do this in a using http://twitpic.com or by adding a link in your tweet.
If possible feature famous people in your tweets
Having celebrity appeal is a great way to increase your numbers of followers.  Retweet celebrity news that is relevant to your site.

Ask questions in your tweets

Ask people what they think, try to get a debate going so you are increasing the level of engagement with your followers and showing you value their opinion.

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How To Engage Your Community With Hashtags?

We all use hashtags these days. Whether it is on Twitter, Instagram, or even Facebook, hashtags are an effective means of grouping conversations and finding others of a like mind online. But they are also a way to engage with your community, both directly and indirectly.

Here are some tips for engaging either a local or online community (or both!):

• Get Contextual. Have you ever seen a hashtag that doesn’t really work to group anything, but it works on the level of providing context to a tweet? For instance, when Facebook announced that they would be allowing clickable hashtags, I saw plenty of tweets with #TwitterAlreadyDidIt. Not so good for searches, but added a bit of humor and context to the tweet itself. This can be a great way to stand out and increase your chances of catching your follower’s eye. I have retweeted plenty of things based on the merit of an amusing hashtag alone, and I am not the only one.
• Look At What’s Trending. When you sign into your Twitter account there is a section on the left hand side that shows what is trending at that very moment. While you will want to use hashtags that are relevant, or at least make them relevant, you can often adapt them for your own use. Right now #TalkAboutYourCrush is trending. I saw a vegetarian recipe Twitter profile use it to talk about a new meal they were “crushing” on. It isn’t difficult to work it in, and it will put you right into the top searches.
• Go With Pop References. During the peak of its popularity, I lost track of the number of Gangnam Style tweets on Twitter. But that is a good thing, because it was popular and it directly engaged with an audience. So when businesses and official accounts jumped on board, it actually brought them some visibility and retweets. Pop culture references are a great way to go, but you have to do it the right way. It isn’t enough just to bring up the reference. You have to cleverly present it with a sense of relevance. Then hashtag the reference itself, such as #GangnamStyle

• Link Off-Site. You don’t just have to rely on those 140 characters to get your point across. Attach a link that goes to your blog or website. You can expand on concepts there, better engage your community, create loyal followers and boost your traffic. If you have a WordPress blog there are plugins that will automatically update Twitter when you have published a new post. This saves a lot of time, though I have always preferred to customize the tweets that contain the link. When doing this, make sure to post the same customized hashtag every time to group all of your links when searched.
• Ask For Feedback. Sometimes the best way to engage is by starting a dialogue. Ask your followers what they think, then attach it to a hashtag for them to use to respond. This can be posted on both your social media profile, and your website itself. One clever tip I have seen is to use one hashtag every time a user communicates with you. That keeps it consistent, and encourages them to regularly provide that feedback.
• Provide An Incentive. A lot of brands have been holding contests and drawings using hashtags as an entry form of sorts. Tell them to offer a story, funny tweet, experience or anything else with a certain hashtag, which enters them to win some kind of prize. Maybe this is just a retweet, a new product for free, or even a major price like cash. People are always eager to use a hashtag with an incentive involved.

Tools For Tracking and Engaging with Hashtags

One of the best things you can do for your Twitter marketing is tracking hashtags. From finding out what is trending, to seeing where your own hashtags and mentions stand, to keeping up on your demographic. It is all about exploiting the site’s unique search algorithm and way of connecting data between users.

Because Twitter is so popular, and hashtags are such a powerful means of analyzing data, tracking tools are everywhere. They aren’t all created equal, however. So here are the tracking tools I have personally found to be among the best.

TwChat

Twitter chat (or Tweet chat) is the most engaging use of hashtags: It’s when you connect your community and discuss something topical with them for an hour or so.

Put in the hashtag, search for it to start tracking. It is that simple, and completely free. They also have other services to check out, like registering a hashtag, branding a hashtag, an archive, and more.

My favorite part is that you can actually FOLLOW fellow chat participants and then see how many people TwChat connected daily!

THESE are actual engagements of your community around your hashtag:

TagBoard

Search for a hashtag, create a ‘tagboard’ and add descriptions or customize it for easier reading. This tool works for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and several other platforms. You can also get versions for both Safari and Chrome, so you can search for hashtags directly in your browser.

Keyhole

You start by searching for a hashtag, keyword or URL. This one takes longer than most, because it is dedicated to the deeper results on the site. The resulting data will be a much more thorough compilation, which will include tweetchats. It will give you a graph showing the number of tweets, how many users are making it, its reach and its impressions, then a timeline for all data. There is also a live hashtag feed with retweets, klout and the most recent mentions. Below that are the top sites where the hashtag is used, the share of voice, top influencers using it, location, demographics and a whole lot more.

Hashtracking

Another thorough breakdown of all data related to hashtags, anyone using these for business related purposes, such as startups, should consider this one. It has full brand analysis, hashtag tracking and influence gauging, Twitter chat transcripts, trend, news and meme tracking, full color graphs and timelines and a ton more. They have plans from $29 – $399 per month, with a 30 day free trial.

Hashtags.org

The simplest tool you can find is hashtags.org. It is a large database of tags, along with analytics, how-to tutorials, a chat feature and more. A basic search will just give you a quick look at a hashtag’s influence. You can upgrade for fuller analytics using a pro account, $49 for personal, $99 for business and $189 for agency.

Have a tool for tracking hashtags? Let us know in the comments.

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