Universal Hashtag Winners!

Elisa Kosarin, CVA

Remember back in August when Liza Dyer and I launched The Quest for the Universal Hashtag?  We wanted to identify one singular hashtag that would stand out from the crowd of sometimes-random tags currently used to communicate about volunteer management.

We asked a group of influencers in our field to nominate tags (a total of 19 in all – we are a creative bunch) and set up a survey so that our community could vote for that one special tag.

The response was terrific: one month later, 337 volunteer managers had heeded the call and placed votes for their first, second, and third choice tags – the ones they felt best represented our profession.

The result?

Well, it turned out that our hypothesis was a bit off.  We figured that one hashtag would leap to the head of the pack, leaving other in the dust.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, we ended up with three different hashtags that were so close in their scores that we could not designate just one winner.

And that’s fine, because each of these winning hashtags serves a slightly different purposeand can be used to convey a different meaning.

So without further ado, please give a round of applause to our Top Three Hashtags

The top scoring hashtag is…(drumroll, please)…

#volmgrsmakeithappen

Perhaps you love this tag for the same reasons I do – because it’s so affirming, and it completely celebrates what’s essential about managing volunteers.  We DO make things happen. Our job is to facilitate action and without us there to lead volunteers, our organizations would lose access to an incredibly valuable resource.

This hashtag is a bit lengthy for Twitter (19 characters), but it lends itself well to those moments on Facebook or Instagram when you want to give a shout out to your colleagues, celebrate a special accomplishment, or remind your audience of the person behind-the-scenes who makes it all take place.

But wait – #2 is pretty darned appealing…

#LOVols

The second place hashtag got inched out of the lead by a mere .01% – and it’s a powerful one because it’s so compact and carries a double meaning. And at six characters, this hashtag is nice and compact for Tweeting.–

LOV stands for Leaders of Volunteers, but for the uninitiated, this hashtag reads as “LOVE Volunteers.”  Given that most our Twitter audience won’t get catch the “leaders of volunteers” part, I would use this any time we want to give a shout out to our fabulous volunteers.

And that’s still not all.  There is one final tag you will want to use…

#volmgmt

So simple, yet so precise.  At only seven characters, this is the go-to hashtag whenever you want to promote the art and science of managing volunteers.  Like LOVolunteers, this hashtag lost out to the winner by a tiny margin margin (.05%.) I know I will be using this one a lot in the Twittersphere.

As of today, you have not just one, but three clever expressions to attach to that funny little # symbol whenever you post about volunteer management. And if you use these particular tags in a regular consistent way, you educate a larger audience about what it takes to harness this powerful resource for the good of our communities.  And that’s #fantastic.

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The votes are in! Read about the top 3 pics for #volmgmt hastags and how to use ’em, https://goo.gl/3Cahzb @Lizaface @THNonprofit