Riding the Hashtag in Social Media Marketing

A “play” in this context means some kind of post that pivots off the news, most likely on Facebook or Twitter. Three weeks ago, a team of employees gathered with Mr. Vaynerchuk in a conference room to discuss a brand they oversee, a cookie that the client did not want named. The team spent much of the meeting trying to figure out how this brand could exploit topics trending on Twitter. They call it “riding the hashtag” here.

.. One of his favorite lines is “marketers ruin everything.” What he means is that marketers take methods that work and then beat consumers with them until numbness sets in, at which point the methods stop working. He proved this adage at Wine Library, he will acknowledge, by sending emails to a list of customers — first one day a week, then every weekday, then on Saturdays, too. Yields plunged, especially as competitors jumped in and emailed to excess right along with him.