Using hashtags – # - on Twitter to make searching easier is now common practice, especially for the ever growing online community of users who tweet whilst watching TV.  More and more often viewers will see official hashtags appear at the start of programmes so they don’t have to think of their own.  However it seems that  the BBC’s popular series ‘Dragons’ Den -’ where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of  investors - has bowed to the pressure of Twitter users by changing the official hashtag shown at the start of the programme early on in the ten-part series.  In episode one it’s clearly shown as #bbcdragons:

 

 
By the time we get to episode three of the series the hashtag has changed to
#dragonsden as shown below:

 
Why has the BBC done this?  Well if you look at Social Radar’s analysis of the two tags it
should become clear:

Since the series started on 31 July Social Radar has calculated that 192,528 mentions of #dragonsden occurred compared to just 28,915 of the official #bbcdragons.  The hashtag was changed on 14 August to #dragonsden and by episode 4 on 21 August there were only 60 mentions of the original #bbcdragons. 

The BBC has been prepared to drop its brand at the beginning of the tag to try and encourage a community of Twitter users who can easily follow each other’s tweets all from one source.  On the official Dragons’ Den website it displays the current tag and even asks tweeps whether they’ve seen a better one http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/buzz/suggest-hashtag. Overall mentions have declined so it will be interesting to see how this trend develops during the remaining six episodes and whether the hashtag changes again.

Land Rover recently became the first brand to execute a national Twitter campaign to promote its newest models’ debuts at the 2009 New York Auto Show.

The campaign promoted hashtag #LRNY in out-of-home venues like billboards and taxi TVs to spread the word of Land Rover’s Twitter efforts.

Was it a success? The campaign cost Land Rover nearly nothing and generated a significant increase in buzz leading up to the New York Auto Show.

According to a recent study, the best way to get Internet users to visit your website or follow your brand is brand mentions, not banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links. So increased word-of-mouth chatter could be considered one form of success for Land Rover.

But what were people saying? Sentiment around Land Rover was largely positive during the spike in chatter, with words like “best” and “luxurious” appearing high in the results.

Digging a bit deeper, we wanted to identify the top influencers on Land Rover during the first few weeks in April. Using Social Radar, we created the visual ecosystem below showing some of the most influential sources and how they connected.

The visual is based on metrics such as the ratio of content matching the Land Rover query, post frequency, inbound link frequency, outbound link frequency, and more. For additional info, Social Radar users can click on any of the bubbles to see stats.

Nearly 45% of Internet users will visit a social network at least once per month, according to eMarketer, but social network advertising represents just 5% of overall online ad dollars. Should more companies follow Land Rover’s lead?

More importantly, can Land Rover use excitement around the campaign to sustain relationships with customers online?