The Rise of the #Hashtag

 

So since Twitters rise to fame in 2006 this little symbol ‘#’ has risen to fame. The hashtag allows twitter users to categorize their tweets, enabling other users worldwide to search for tweets on a certain topic. If a word is ‘hashtagged’ enough it will start to trend allowing a topic to spread and can enter the top 5 trending topics box on twitter. Now the reason I bring this up is because of recent I have been seeing this little symbol EVERYWHERE; whether it be on the new lucozade advert, Britain’s Got Talent, the adidas display at work or right now as I watch The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE).

It seems like everyone wants to jump on this poor little symbol so that they can start or be involved with a trending topic. Users on other social networking websites like Facebook have even tried to hashtag statuses. The only thing is…it just doesn’t work! It just looks a bit silly when people use hashtags on websites that aren’t twitter because if I were to click on their hashtag it would lead me nowhere. You see when you hashtag a word or phrase on twitter other users can click on it and be directed to a page where all the latest tweets involving that hashtag will appear.

In terms of PR hashtags can be a useful tool as it can be a great way to drum up some ‘hype’ and support for whatever cause or product they want people to know about. The power lies in PR practitioners being able to spread their message in a fun and interactive way and most vitally in a way where their message can become a viral phenomenon. Like for example in March when the charity the Invisible Children were able to spread their message through their hashtag #Kony2012, which became a worldwide trending topic. 

Personally I think that PR practitioners should really consider using this powerful little symbol so long as they can come up with a catchy little phrase that is likely to get trending.

Kony 2012: Cover the What?

Soo Friday was supposed to be the night when all of the millions of supporters of Kony2012 ran through the streets of major cities to cover it posters of Kony and make him famous but… THAT FAILED.

Waking up on Saturday morning and walking through town (Leicester) I saw absolutely NOTHING! Not one poster or sticker was about, so the question was what happened?

The campaign aimed to plaster ‘every city, on every block’ around the world with posters, stickers and murals of Kony to pressure governments into hunting down the leader however it seems that the campaigns phenomenal success in mustering young people’s support online, following the launch of their documentary video which went viral last month, flopped in trying to turn that support into real life actions.

Now it could have been that it was just Leicester that didn’t take off, but no. News report state that globally there was just no real support for the campaigns movement. It seems that in the UK alone journalists were having doubts on the day as to whether this event would take off. Journalist Peter Walker said  ‘While almost 10,000 people have used a UK Kony 2012 Facebook event page to say they will take part, the site, along with many other social media pages devoted to the protest, is also filled with debate about the efficacy of Invisible Children's campaign.’

Personally it seems to me that either people just forgot or they had lost confidence in the campaign following Jason Russell’s breakdown on March 19, all the speculation that it was scam and the entire backlash that their documentary video received. 

Or it could just be that everyone had moved on and the Invisible Children is just that…Invisible.

Facebook Takeover

On the 10^th of April it was publicised that social networking website Facebook had announced that it was to buy Instagram- a popular photo-sharing app for smartphones. The company is paying $1billion in cash and stock shares for the takeover of Instagram which was only launched in October 2010. The app was at first exclusively for iPhone users; however it was recently made available as an app for Android users.

Instagram is a free app which allows users to apply one of 17 filters to their pictures to change the colour balance before they are uploaded. Users could then post their pictures to other social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The app has proven to be very popular with users uploading over 1 million photos everyday.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive pledged to continue to develop Instagram as a separate brand, allowing users to still post pictures to rival networks.

However what is interesting is that is appears that Twiiter co-founder Jack Dorsey and an Instagram investor tried to buy the app a few weeks before Zuckerberg came along and sealed the deal. Apparently since the Facebook and Instagram deal Dorsey who was an early backer of Instagram and would regularly post his pictures onto his Twitter profile has not posted any pictures.

Personally as a user of Instagram I’m not particularly bothered that Facebook has taken it over so long as they do not make any drastic changes to the app because I like the way it is now. However a lot of people are worried about the fact that Facebook have taken it over because they are known for constantly changing things even when it’s not necessary.

None the less one thing for sure is that Facebook have made a very good acquisition, sorry Twitter maybe next time.