An Examination of a Campaign Hashtag (#OptOutside) with Google Trends and Twitter

Abstract

Brands ubiquitously use hashtags in their online and offline marketing communications. The use of hashtags can bring attention to brands and facilitate an online conversation around a brand-related topic. Despite the widespread use of hashtags, a scarcity of research specifically explores consumers’ reactions to brands’ campaign hashtags. Hence, this study aims to demonstrate an evaluation of a brand’s hashtag by relying on online brand search and user-generated online content. More precisely, the author examines the #OptOutside campaign from outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), by analyzing online brand search with Google Trends data and user-generated textual content (i.e., 276,049 tweets) that contains REI’s #OptOutside, which is an official campaign hashtag. These method and findings add to social media research and practice by offering a practical approach to leverage online brand search and user-generated online content to examine the effectiveness of a hashtag campaign.

Keywords:

• Hashtag
• online brand search
• social responsibility
• Twitter
• social media