Sometimes hashtags get away from you.
From Bank of America‘s @BofA_Tips Twitter feed, #BetterMoneyHabits is the hashtag that accompanies links to Bank of America’s curated collection of financial tips. Media is usually attached to these tweets. They’re often cute graphics or short videos containing money facts, such as this one from a few days ago.
Here’s how to help shape your children’s view of money as they grow: http://t.co/D7rJ7xsYdb#BetterMoneyHabitshttps://t.co/AZ49OWh9B1
— Bank of America (@BofA_Tips) July 24, 2015
At the time of this writing, the above tweet had 162 likes and 57 retweets; this is around the average for #BetterMoneyHabits tweets — which is very good.
The intriguing thing about the #BetterMoneyHabits hashtag is that, while it has a limited use by the Bank of America Twitter account, it seems to have widespread use by the general public. According to Hashtracking.com, around 80% of uses of #BetterMoneyHabits are from retweets of Bank of America’s tweets. But the rest of the most recent tweets using the hashtag don’t make any mention of @BofA_Tips or Bank of America.
This leaves Bank of America in an interesting position. It uses the hashtag to draw attention to its media concerning money saving tips and to maximize hits on those items. While there can be no doubt that @BofA_Tips originated the hashtag, #BetterMoneyHabits’ reach has eclipsed that of @BofA_Tips, taking on a separate identity, and making all of those independent uses of the hashtag useless to it as a marketing tool.
On the other hand, if the tag takes off wildly, Bank of America will play a major role within it, yielding positive vibes for, we assume, not a lot of capital outflow.