A reader recently joined Twitter and found a number of other users who were tweeting about a topic that interested him. They were using a specific hash tag to identify the topic, so he began adding that tag to his own related tweets as well.
Shortly thereafter, someone contacted him claiming that his organization owned the hash tag and had even set their Twitter user name to the same thing. The organization demanded that my reader stop using the tag, so he wanted to know if this was fair game.
I found this question interesting because it combined elements of both rules and etiquette. While the first is usually pretty cut and dried, the latter is not.
So, first, the rules part. No, no one can "own" a hash tag. That's pretty simple. However, there is an element of good social behaviour involved, so I thought I'd share my opinions on that as well.
As I explained in my earlier post, The Twitter Hash Tag: What Is It and How Do You Use It? these things tend to grow organically and anyone can add them to their tweets at any time. So I think that if any company is thinking of using a Twitter hash tag as a branding platform, they don't have a very good idea of what Twitter is to begin with.
A good example is if you search on the tag, #coke. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a company that has a larger or more strongly controlled brand than Coca-Cola. But a quick scan of the search results shows that there are all kinds of tweets, from asking people to take a poll to commenting on the infamous "New Coke" marketing blunder to a link to a blog post with a (Photoshopped) picture of a giant hamster sipping Diet Coke through a straw. (Seriously.)
And as I scrolled through several screens of tweets, I discovered that not one of them was actually posted by the company itself.
In my reader's situation, the tag isn't even the organization's real name—it's much more broad and generic. I don't want to identify it but it would be like if, instead of using the #tech4ludds tag I use for my related tweets, I tagged them with #techtips. (That is a real hash tag and, not surprisingly, is used in tweets on all sorts of technical topics.) Similarly, lots of people have already used the tag my reader is referring to in its broader sense. I don't know if the organization is contacting everyone else to tell them to stop using it as well.
If this organization were my client, the first thing I'd tell them would be to change their username to their actual name (or a variation, if the exact match is already taken) and try to create a similar hash tag. There'd still be no guarantee that others wouldn't use that tag for non-related topics but, to me, that's where the etiquette factor comes in.
I think if you're adding a hash tag to your own tweets, you should ensure it's related to the way it's being generally used. So, if a company has initiated one that matches its name, you should respect that and only use it if your tweet is specifically related to that company. (Of course, companies also need to be aware that "related" doesn't always mean "positive"...)
Here's another example. When I decided to create a hash tag for my Tech for Luddites postings, I wanted it to be #t4l, just so it would take up fewer characters. I did a search on it and found a single tweet from many months earlier, using it for a totally unrelated topic. So I accepted that someone got it before me and I needed to find something else. (It doesn't appear in the search results anymore, so I suppose I could snag it now, but it's a little late, considering you can't attach a tag retroactively to posts.)
So that's my take on the subject. In this particular case, I think the organization is wrong and should rethink its Twitter strategy. However, I think it behooves all Twitterers to use hash tags appropriately because, if they don't, it won't be such a useful tool anymore.
What about you? Have you ever found yourself on either end of a similar situation? Do you have a different take on it? If so, I'd love to hear about it!
Posted in Etiquette, My Two Cents, Reader Questions, Twitter
