By SAM McGUIRE
Student Writer
It’s changing the world of business, whether it’s called a pound sign or a hashtag.
The term “hashtag” was first coined on August 26, 2007, by Stowe Boyd. Hashtags were originally used as twitter grouping, but now businesses use them as a prominent marketing tool.
According to Sprout Social’s website, the way a hashtag works is using the pound symbol (#) paired with a word or phrase to create a link for the post that makes it easily searchable.
Kayleen Van Buren, a 28-year-old from Brainerd, Minnesota, said she is living the dream. Two years ago, Van Buren started selling ItWorks, a multi-level marketing company which sells health products, to try to make some extra money. At first, Van Buren didn’t use hashtags when marketing the products, but she said she could have saved herself a lot of work if she would have used hashtags from the beginning.
Van Buren now uses hashtags regularly to market her ItWorks products.
“I am better able to target a specific group of people that I know will have interest in my products,” Van Buren said. “I can narrow down that playing field drastically to the people who might be in the market.”
Van Buren said she enjoys how hashtags narrow down your audience, but the hashtags can start to seem less personal if too many are used.
Sarah Otto, a senior at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and owner of the Coyote Cowgirl, said hashtags have more negative qualities than just over usage.
“I’ve never been a fan of this trend,” she said, “[hashtags are] tacky to use in a professional business, in my opinion.”
Christopher Sommer, social media strategist at VI Marketing and Branding in Oklahoma City, said companies using hashtags also need to be aware of some other cons before posting one on their social media pages. Some hashtags can be used for something completely different, Sommer said, and a brand using them would need to make sure the meaning doesn’t conflict with their message.
DiGiorno Pizza made the mistake of not checking the hashtags other uses before using one in 2014. The hashtag was #WhyIStayed, which, according to David Griner’s story in Ad Week, was being used at the time to fight the victim-blaming attitude of Janay Palmer’s critics who questioned why she would marry a man who knocked her unconscious.
Besides all the negative possibilities associated with hashtags, Sommer said when used appropriately they can significantly promote a business.
Northwestern is a campus that incorporates many hashtags into their marketing. Ali Gavitt, one of Northwestern’s university relational specialists for the department of University Relations, helps with all of the university’s social media channels. Northwestern has many social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and recently has created a Snapchat with hopes to use it in the future.
“We typically try to use #NWOSU in all of our social media posts to make them easier to find,” Gavitt said. “We want the students to be involved. We want the students to look for the events and post them with the same hashtags. That’s why we try to use them when possible.”
It seems the popular vote is hashtags are here to stay.
Sommer said, “I think [hashtags] are so widely used now and so common that they are just a part of day-to-day use of social media.”
Van Buren also shares these thoughts. “I think hashtags are a thing to stay,” she said, “Instagram users are growing daily and that system is based solely on hashtags.”
“In the world of marketing, social media is a god-send,” Van Buren said. “Word of mouth is the best advertising. Social media is free and targets the most people… Let’s be honest, how many times a day do you check your Facebook?”