Great Use of Hashtags in Marketing

Last week, Adrienne and I attended the NAMAOne show in Las Vegas. As I rounded the corner, I noticed a giant vending machine and stopped to see what was going on. USA Technologies had just launched a marketing campaign with Master Card, and you could tweet to the “machine” for a chance to win a prize.

People are always asking me "what's a hashtag and how can I use it?" so to see this kind of hashtag use in action absolutely thrilled me—enough that I had to stop right there and take a video of it!  USA Technologies knew there was going to be a huge crowd at this show and decided to take advantage of the fact that most people were going to have a smartphone, and of those, a good percentage would be on Twitter.

Check out the video and tell me what you think, and then consider how you can incorporate an idea like this into your marketing plan. It doesn't have to be on this scale, but what are some ways you can get people involved with your brand?