Campaigns · 3 min read
How to Create Branded Hashtags
Choosing a tag your audience can spell, remember and actually use.
What makes one work
A branded hashtag has to survive being heard once and typed later. That means short, phonetic, unambiguous when the spaces are removed, and free of characters that change between keyboards. Read every candidate aloud, then write it down from memory a minute later.
It also has to be unused. Search each candidate on every platform you post to before you print it on anything.
Build a small family, not one tag
Most brands need three: an evergreen community tag, a campaign tag for time-bound pushes, and a product or event tag when needed. Deriving them from the same brand root keeps them recognisable — the community tag as the root alone, the campaign tag as root plus campaign word.
Document the approved list somewhere everyone posting can see it. Half of all branded hashtag problems are two teams inventing two spellings in the same week.
Encouraging use
People use a tag when there is a visible reason to. Feature posts that use it, put it in your bio, and show it in your own captions consistently. A branded tag with no visible feed behind it will not grow on its own.