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Twitter, as a standard social networking platform, is a viral marketing strategy all on its own, especially if your followers like your tweets and retweet them to their followers. But, I’ve recently noticed a further trend in Twitter usage that increases its viral marketing capabilities through the use of hashtags.

What’s a hashtag, anyhow? Also called the beat sign, the hashtag (#) is added to a peep as a way of making trackable categories, groups, or topics that others can use to search for info using the Twitter Search feature. One of the most common uses of the hashtag is to peep what’s happening at an event or conference. The event organizer will question for all attendees use a specific hashtag, i.e. #yourevent, when tweeting about the event to your followers. So, then, a name who isn’t present at the event but wants to follow what’s happening there can simply search for #yourevent and see what’s going on and what participants are saying and sharing about the event.

Anyone can make a hashtag by putting hashtag (#) in front of anything. If you log into Twitter and look in the right-hand column, you’ll see the Trending Topics, many of which can be tracked with a hashtag. How can you use this strategy to make more viral marketing for your business on Twitter? By making a hashtag Twitter tips campaign.

Here are 6 steps to help you make your own Twitter hashtag campaign:

1. Research. What kinds of tips would be valued by your target market? On what topics do you frequently receive questions from your clients? My target market is permanently asking questions about getting more traffic, so I chose to focus on traffic generation strategies.

2. Choose your name. Choose a fleeting, simple name that reflects your brand and what you’re offering. Previous to making your final choice, you need to check your proposed name on Twitter Search (search by including the #) to ensure that no one else is using that name. Otherwise, your tweeted tips will blend together with the other hashtag group using that name. I quickly checked and exposed that no one was using #OBUTrafficTip, so that’s what I chose.

3. Make your tips. You can easily pick your tips out of an article or blog post you’ve produced. In my case, I had bought a PLR ebook that I used as a basis for my tips. Remember that your tips need to be less than 140 characters, including the hashtag name you’ve chosen and any links you include.

4. Link to relevant info. You get the most mileage out of these tips if you link the tips to a touch relevant to that tip. For example, if you have a bank of articles, each tip might link to an article you’ve written that has more details about the tip. For maximum exposure, you’ll want to link to info on your site or your blog rather than to the posting of an article in an article directory.

5. Upload the tips into TweetLater.com. This type of campaign is easily managed using TweetLater.com. Simply upload your completed tips and set them to distribute once a day or (several times a week) over the upcoming weeks by postdating them into the future. In this way you place these tips on autopilot and they post themselves.

6. Let them start to work their magic. It may take awhile for them to catch on, but ultimately others will start to retweet your tips as useful information they want their followers to access. As with most marketing strategies, consistence is the key here to your success.

It’s pretty simple to start your own viral marketing tips campaign using the Twitter hashtag. Simply follow the steps as outlined above, and watch as your number of Twitter follows grows each day!