Presentation: Hashtags - How to engage with your audience one tweet at a time Presented by: Leslie Marshall, Director - Events, Magazine, Social Media Marketing Services, Morningstar, Inc. Morningstar has used hashtags to engage with financial advisors at conferences and investors through Twitter chats. In this session, Leslie Marshall, director events and social media at Morningstar, will highlight key successes in using an appropriate hashtag to promote Morningstar’s conferences and online events globally, as well as share live thought leadership from the events and address customer service issues in real-time. Hashtags offer an invaluable way of gathering data from live Twitter chats and conferences. Leslie will offer insight and observations from the hashtag data collected at the 2013 Morningstar Investment Conference and Morningstar ETF Invest Conference, as well as other Twitter chats. www.bdionline.com

1. Hashtags: How to Engage with Your Audience
One Tweet at a Time
Leslie Marshall
@LeslieAMarshall
Director – Events, Magazine, and Social Media
Morningstar, Inc.
© 2012 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved.
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2. “Hashtags Are for Nerds”
× “[Twitter]
Photo Credit: Mike Duca
told me flat
out, ‘These things are
for nerds. They’re
never going to catch
on,’” Messina said in a
phone interview. Source:
“ How Twitter’s Hashtag
Came to Be,” WSJ Digits
blog,
http://blogs.wsj.com/digit
s/2013/10/03/howtwitters-hashtag-cameto-be/
2

3. Hashtags – Where Conversations Collect
than half of mobile-device owners regularly use hashtags.
(Source: Survey by RadiumOne, March 2013,
http://www.radiumone.com/about/press/hashtags-on-mobiledevices.html)
× Nielsen announced an agreement with Twitter to create the
“Nielsen Twitter TV Rating,” an industry-standard metric that is
based entirely on Twitter data. (Twitter/Neilsen announcement,
December 2012)
× “Conversations collect around hashtags. If you want to start a
conversation, introduce a hashtag. If you want to join a conversation
already happening on Twitter, find the hashtag that's being used.”
https://dev.twitter.com/media/hashtags
× More
3

4. Morningstar Conferences
× Platform to
share thought leadership and rich sources for content and
conversation.
Photo Credit (both photos): Jim Tweedie

5. Morningstar® Investment Conference – Use of the Hashtag
×
×
×
×
×
Established use of a hashtag at conferences in
2009.
The hashtag is included in all marketing and
communicated to journalists in advance of the
conference.
Bill Gross of PIMCO crowd sourced his keynote
by asking @PIMCO followers for topics to
address at #MIC2011.
Conference hashtag is a trending topic on
Twitter in Chicago in 2012 and again this year in
2013.
Due to global conference growth and social
media adoption by attendees, Morningstar
adopted a hashtag system by country, or to
mark special milestones: #MICUK, #MICAU,
#MIC25.

6. Hashtag Use at Financial Services Conferences
Focus: 2,840 tweets
× 2013 LIMRA Social Media Financial
Services Conference: 4,581 tweets
× 2013 Morningstar Investment Conference:
13,036 tweets with #MIC25 (Data:
RegEd/Arkovi)
× 915 tweets with #ETFInvest hashtag for
2013; 90% over 2012. (Data:
RegEd/Arkovi)
× iShares ran a series of promoted tweets
targeting #ETFInvest, the hashtag for 2013
Morningstar ETF Invest Conference.
× 2013 LPL
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7. #MIC25 Hashtag = Twitter Engagement
×
Reach: 394 different Twitter handles with a total reach of 1.1 million followers
× 38% Media, with 442,757 followers
× 24% Attendees, financial advisors, CPAs with 281,918 followers
× 22% Asset managers and exhibiting companies with 249,327 followers
× 5% Morningstar, with 57,432 followers
× 4% Investors with 44,804 followers
× 4% Financial services PR and marketing firms with 42,300 followers
× 2% Other, including Erik Wahl fans with 27,204 followers
× 1% Companies related to the financial industry with 14,885 followers
×
13,020 posts with #MIC25 hashtag, compared to 1,602 in 2012
× 27% Media
× 24% Attendees, financial advisors, CPAs
× 24% Morningstar
× 15% Asset managers and exhibiting companies
× 4% Financial services PR and marketing firms
× 3% Companies related to the financial industry
× 1% Investors
× 1% Other, including Erik Wahl fans

8. Tweets Tell the Story via Storify – Fund Industry Intelligence:
http://storify.com/Nickmanjardine/mic25-1

9. Connect and Engage with Your Target Audience
× Promote
your presence at
an event through your
Twitter account.
× Send leads to sales people
– who’s tweeting live from
the event?
× Share news and ideas that
are relevant to your
followers by tracking the
hashtag.

10. Talk to Your Audience and Curate Content with Hashtags
× Established use
of #askmstar for all Morningstar Twitter chats
#mstardiscuss connected to Discuss posts on Morningstar.com.
× Christine Benz, director of personal finance, poses a question to
investors and creates a column from answers received via
#mstardiscuss and Discuss board comments.
× Morningstar Canada held a Twitter chat in August 2013.
× Twitter chat conducted in English and French.
× Five Morningstar experts answered questions for an hour.
× Tracked 90 uses of the #askmstar hashtag during the hour;
gained five new followers.
× Directed followers to additional resources on Morningstar.ca
related to the topics.

11. Lesson Learned – Be Curious
Image source: http://ralfschwartz.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451fb2a69e2013485505746970c-pi

12. Lesson Learned – Have A Sense of Humor
Video: "#Hashtag" with Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA

13. Connect with Morningstar
× Morningstar Company
Page on LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/company/morningstar
× Morningstar Company Twitter Handle: @MorningstarInc
× Careers at Morningstar - @MorningstarJobs on Twitter
http://corporate1.morningstar.com/US/Careers/
× Morningstar Advisor @MStarAdvisor on Twitter. Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/morningstar.advisor
× People at Morningstar on Twitter
× @christine_benz, director of personal finance, Morningstar.com
× @jerrykerns, editor in chief, Morningstar Advisor magazine
× @MStarScottBurns, director of fund research, North America
× @RussKinnel, director of mutual fund research