The term hashtag hijacking is very close to the concept of hijacking in the airline industry. When a plane deviates from its original route and is directed towards the intended destination of the hijackers, they use the term hijack for it.
I will use a simple example to explain the kidnapping hashtag. Let’s say that the #elections hashtag is trending near the elections and you are searching among the election hashtags, but suddenly you come across an advertisement of a marketing training workshop that used the #elections hashtag. This case is exactly a clear example of hashtag hijacking.
Hijacking hashtag technique
Hijacking hashtags is one of the malfunctions of social networks. In designing a hashtag campaign, it is possible to prevent it from being hijacked to a great extent by choosing the right hashtag.
Sometimes, those who steal hashtags don’t know that they have done something ugly and unprofessional. They may even use this method as one of the techniques to be seen in a social network and recommend it to others.
So it’s important to remember that this is almost black hat SEO when it comes to search engine optimization . Even those who use these techniques deny their use in order to maintain their professional image.
Motive of the robbers hashtag
Various motivations for hashtag hijacking can be imagined. Therefore, here I will only mention examples of the most common ones:
1- Being seen
This method is used by those who want to ride on the reputation and brand of others.
For example, when someone knows that #Kale or #Damdaran or #Pegah are famous dairy brands. Therefore, he uses these hashtags for his newly launched dairy business.
In this way, it doesn’t matter if there are 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 branded hashtags . It is only important that if someone was searching for the top brands of the market using the hashtag, he would also see the anonymous brand.
2- Trending
In this case, unlike the previous case where hijacking is done with a long-term goal, the hashtag hijacker knows that a certain topic has become a trend and its wave will sleep in the future.
So, he tries to take advantage of it to be seen better during a period of time when a topic or stream has become a trend.
During the Plasco fire and the earthquake in the west of our country, unfortunately, many cases of hijacking of the hashtags #Plasco, #Earthquake, #Kermanshah and even #Consolation were observed.
3- To protest
Protesting against brands, businesses and the behavior of celebrities is sometimes done with the help of hashtags.
As a rule, those who have their audience community, do their opinion and view and critique without resorting to these types of tools.
But those who don’t have an audience and a base, use hashtag hijacking to try to get their message to the eyes and ears of potential audiences at any cost.
This type of hashtag hijacking can be considered somewhat similar to wall writing in the physical world. Sometimes those who have a problem with a person or a big brand, write their protest on the wall of that person’s house or company. In fact, because they do not have an audience base, they resort to the media and spaces available to the other party to present their message.
4- Damage
Using hashtags is one of the common ways to implement advertising and marketing campaigns in social networks .
Sometimes, in order to damage a campaign, rival companies and brands hijack the desired hashtag while running such campaigns using anonymous and scattered accounts.
To the extent that new people, by checking the history of the hashtag, no longer take that campaign seriously and give up participating in it.
Prevention of hashtag hijacking
In many cases, brands simply report accounts. Or that by increasing the number of their posts, they try to dilute other hashtags.
Sometimes, depending on the platform where the hashtag is hijacked, they may decide to remain silent or change their hashtag.
Basically, there is no method or technique to prevent hashtag hijacking. But following some tips may be able to reduce the possibility of stealing hashtags.
My suggestions do not necessarily mean that these methods are correct or approved.
But you can consider them as some initial ideas:
Hashtags that have exaggerated and extreme messages encourage the audience to hijack more. For example, in the campaign of an automobile manufacturer, a hashtag that only has the brand name of that automobile manufacturer is less likely to be caught by hashtag thieves compared to the hashtag #best-car or #Iranian-driver.
Using hashtags with a clear purpose and meaning can reduce the possibility of hashtag hijacking. Let’s assume that a hashtag in the form of #Panjere-khaneh-man is intended for an advertising campaign of a UPVC windows company. Even assuming a hashtag is hijacked, those browsing through the hashtagged posts can quickly figure out which posts are actually related to the hashtag and which are likely to be hijacked.
Some brands, as a policy, prefer to use hashtags in their campaigns that do not contain the brand name itself. With this, even assuming that their campaign hashtag is hijacked, after the campaign is over, their original hashtag is still clean and usable.
Of course, here it is assumed that the other party does not intend to harm the brand on purpose and simply wants to attract an audience by surfing on a campaign.
Usually, digital public relations units learn from experience not to organize hashtag campaigns in critical periods and times when the environment is not good for their brand, so as not to create a space for their brand to be damaged more.
Of course, let’s keep in mind that in this field, there is no definite rule and rule, and only by trial and error and experimenting, we can identify effective methods to deal with hijacking hashtags.
I’m curious to know what you do when someone tries to steal your hashtag? Share your actions with us.
