Do Creative Hashtags Earn More Engagement?

Imagine having the task of choosing your organization’s main hashtag to be used on all promotional materials. Sounds pretty easy, right?

An article by Sports Blog Nation ranked all of the NFL team’s new Twitter hashtags that are all-purpose, representations of each team. Twitter has deemed these the official team hashtags by adding an emoji of the appropriate team’s logo whenever their tag is used. Although the article ranks each in creativity, by using Social Mention, a media monitoring platform, we’ll really see if innovation in hashtag creation effects engagement and reach.

#RiseUp – Ranked one of the highest in SBNation’s article, the Atlanta Falcons hashtag has been the team’s slogan since 2010. It receives an immensely positive sentiment of 11:0, however only has a reach of 10 percent and strength of 7 percent. The team’s official Twitter account doesn’t consistently use the hashtag and focuses more on short term campaign hashtags. Since this is the team’s long-lasting slogan, it isn’t the most popular among social media, but is regularly used by loyal fans.

#FlyEaglesFly – Although there are outside influences that can cause these hashtags to fluctuate in popularity, the Philadelphia Eagles hashtag currently has a strength of 100 percent, meaning the team is definitely being talked about across social media. It’s sentiment is 16:1, greatly more positive than negative, and has a reach of 65 percent. It has a passion of 35 percent, meaning more people are likely to talk about it more than once. This hashtag is both creative yet identifiable as to which team is belongs to, which can make all the difference. Fans and non fans alike are likely to use the tag, giving it a much higher ranking when it comes to exposure.

#Chargers – These basic hashtags are categorized under mundane yet identifiable – boring, but straight to the point. Almost every NFL team has a hashtag like this, however, it stands as some teams’ official tag on Twitter. It’s easy-to-use when spreading news about teams instead of using their witty, fun and sometimes long slogan hashtags. The Los Angeles Chargers hashtag receives 100 percent strength, a 2:1 sentiment, 40 percent reach and 79 percent passion. This basically means that most uses of the tag are neutral and are somewhat equal when swaying positive or negative. The team’s recent relocation is definitely getting it some attention with its strong passion and strength, however even similar hashtags receive the same awareness. #Chiefs (Kansas City Chiefs) also has 100 percent strength and 124 percent reach, also likely due to the tags simple nature.

So, to answer the age-old question: Does Twitter hashtag-naming creativity effect engagement? Through this investigation, it doesn’t seem like it – the simpler, the better. Something that’s recognizable and short receives far more engagement than the slogan-like tags that seem to only be used by fans of those teams. Even if the hashtags sentiment sways closer to neutral, simpler tags greatly receive more exposure.