This is a guest post by Jessica Sanders, she is an avid small business writer touching on topics from social media to background checks. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including medical billing software for lead generation resource, Resource Nation.

With Twitter comes all the great ways to share, talk, learn… and destroy a company’s marketing plan? New social media platforms have allowed businesses to reach audiences they never thought possible and conduct effective marketing campaigns with ease.

One of the best marketing tools is the hash tag. You can start a trend, steer a conversation or conduct a successful marketing campaign. However, its power to get people talking is both good and bad. With that in mind, consider the following suggestions before starting your hashtag campaign.

Stay True To Your Brand

As with any marketing strategy, you want it to be a reflection of what your brand stands for. Your brand image is what sets you apart from competitors, and your campaign should be a mirror image of that.  Don’t take your public, and easily skewed, conversation-starting campaign to recreate you and everything you stand for.

• Use it to compliment or enhance your brand. Don’t take chances with a subject area that could easily spiral into negative conversation. 

• Consider choosing a variation of something that has already been discussed between fans in the Twitterverse. This will give you an idea of how they might respond.

• This can also be an opportunity to include valuable fans, making your campaign even more effective.

Find Your Focus

Presenting a general topic leaves room for conversation to spiral into something it’s not supposed to be. When you introduce a conversation starter that surrounds the positives your brand has to offer, with clarity and definition, it’s more difficult to take out of context.

• Choose something specific to your brand, whether it is a phrase, product or mantra. 

• Don’t leave room for misreading; make the phrase clear and easily understood. 

• Upon the first reveal of your campaign, frame it using specific questions. This allows you to start the conversation, being a guide for what you hope to see. 

Be Crisis Ready

No matter how careful you are, you’ll never know for sure what will happen when you release your hashtag campaign. While you may have thousands of loving fans, there are still a thousand more waiting to crash your party. All you can do is be ready for the worst and hope for the best.

• Get opinions from partners. Offer them your worst case scenario and ask for theirs. Get multiple opinions before sending it out to the world.

• Be a part of the conversation. When something goes awry you can do a quick clean up and steer the conversation back on track.

• Always be checking in with the progress. The Twitterverse never sleeps, so make a point to check in every half hour the first couple days. What is caught early can be easily remedied. 

When it comes to Twitter, your business has a 50/50 shot at sinking or swimming. It’s easy to take advantage of the effortless interaction that comes with using this platform. Yet, it’s just as easy to be shipwrecked with one wrong word. Never underestimate the power of social media, for the good it promises and the bad it can bring.