The hashtag is dead

Remember when the internet first became a place for businesses to explore? All the excitement of a new space to operate coupled with all the novel questions. “Do we need a website? How about a Facebook page, a Twitter account, an Instagram, and a blog?” And all agencies would scream in unison, “Definitely!” Then as time went on, the cringe worthy question became, “Can you make us go viral?” The latest question that keeps cropping up scares me almost as much…

“What hashtag will we use?”

The mighty hashtag. A genius concept for compiling and monitoring specific topics on social, suggested by Chris Messina in 2007 as a tool for grouping content. But have we truly considered the purpose of this feature in 2015? With all the advanced tracking capabilities and tools these days, is the hashtag as important as it once was?

Considering that our attention spans are getting shorter with the increase with online noise – is it smart to create two different links in a message? If we want consumers to click on something, surely the call to action link is more vital than the hashtag to read a stream of tweets or posts?

When was the last time you clicked on a hashtag on Twitter to see who else was using it? I can’t remember the last time I did. If something interests me enough, I’d prefer a link to further information. In fact, even on our personal capacities, has the hashtag not lost its real purpose and simply become a noisy addition to a list of random words to accompany #selfies?

I’m certainly not saying there is no place on the internet for the beloved pound key. But it needs to have context that counts. An example of contextual relevance is the #RhodesMustFall trend.

When a tweet or movement needs a wider context, the hashtag is most certainly a valid option to include. And on occasion, a hashtag can even become a brand in itself – like #RunJozi. The tricky part of this approach is that every business wants their hashtag to become a brand, have a voice, stand on its own two feet and evolve into a self-sustaining element that will carry the story. Businesses expect a lot of time and effort to be put into the almighty campaign hashtag – something that will never see the light of day again. It’s our job to educate clients about the importance of content, context, and the call to action that should be the focus of social sharing – not the hashtag.

The more hashtags I see, the more noise I hear with no real strategic purpose. We know that although the Twitter character limit is 140, the most well received ones are less than 100 – we crave simplicity. The shorter the better – our brains don’t need a sea of information washing over them in an age where “we’re creating as much content every two days to equate everything created from the beginning of time until 2007” according to Google’s Eric Schmidt.

So there’s some #FoodForThought.

Image: Michael Coghlan via Flickr.