It was not that long ago that Twitter and Facebook experts stated using hashtags as a crucial element in high-performing social media updates.
Well, it seems that now you can pretty much ignore the statement out the virtual window. Recently,Twitter released a study focused on direct response ads, which are intended to drive a specific result, like an app install or a website visit. The study suggested that when these ads included a hashtag or mentioned another account, they didn’t perform well.
For instance, when you are trying to drive visitors to your website, a tweet that doesn’t include a # or @ mention will generate 23 percent more clicks. When the tweet is focused on driving an app install, forgoing a # or @ mention increases clicks by 11%.
What the Twitter study reveals is that these “clickable” parts of a tweet distract people from taking the action the advertisers want. While this is really about getting the most activity from these direct response ads, perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here.
“If you’re trying to join a conversation, you should absolutely use a hashtag. But for driving for a specific click that you’re looking for off Twitter, the less noise that you put in between [the better]” said Anne Mercogliano, the head of SMB marketing at Twitter
To most of us however, what the study really shows is that Twitter can’t even define the best practices for using Twitter. That’s not just a problem for social media marketers, but for everyone else (investors included) too.