When an Event Is Brands Only, Are Hashtags Even Off Limits to Vendors?

When some people say #brandsonly, they mean it quite literally. This week, SocialMedia.org has been hosting a Brands-Only Summit, and while a vendor-free environment can certainly sound appealing, it can also create a bit of awkardness when enforced on non-attendees trying to participate on Twitter.

Case in point: Here's a tweet from Whole Foods senior social media program manager Ryan Amirault:

How many sales guys are going to mooch off of the #BrandsOnly hashtag? Lots.— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 8, 2013

Shortly after, social media management service Sprinklr made the mistake of responding to one of Amirault's tweets from a #brandsonly session, and the company included a link to one of its recent blog posts:

@RyanAmirault Focus on good ideas, the rest will work itself out #brandsonly#contenthttp://t.co/Ik39Thvwq3— Sprinklr (@Sprinklr) December 10, 2013

Amirault told Sprinklr to cut it out:

@Sprinklr#brandsonly, please don’t mooch the hashtag.— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 10, 2013

Sprinklr responded, noting that it actually had employees at the event:

@RyanAmirault Not trying to mooch Ryan, just trying to share. We are actually at Brands Only as well. Hope you're enjoying!

— Sprinklr (@Sprinklr) December 10, 2013

But Amirault still felt the vendor's tweet was out of line:

@Sprinklr nope, you are mooching. Cut it out.— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 10, 2013

So I asked Amirault whether he felt the hashtag should be limited solely to non-vendors attending the conference:

@RyanAmirault So in your opinion, who should be allowed to use the #brandsonly hashtag without it coming across as mooching? Attendees only?— David Griner (@griner) December 11, 2013

Here's the conversation that followed:

@griner yes, attendees for sure & I find it uncomfortable to have vendors use it as a sales tactic. (1/2)— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 11, 2013

@griner many vendors even bought twitter ads around the hashtag, which I find to be in bad taste. (2/2)— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 11, 2013

@RyanAmirault The idea of an attendee-only hashtag seems somewhat antisocial, though. Shouldn't others feel comfortable responding?— David Griner (@griner) December 11, 2013

@griner sure, but my point is that using it as a sales tactic is not cool. Folks here are already bombarded with sales pitches enough.— Ryan Amirault (@RyanAmirault) December 11, 2013

Interestingly, AMC Theatres' socially savvy loyalty marketing manager, Shane Adams, also weighed in at this point, taking a bit more of an accommodating stance on outsiders' tweets:

@griner The theme of the conference is brands only because http://t.co/OxMpoeZyWA is a brands only organization. However, by using a public— Shane Adams (@shaneadams) December 11, 2013

@griner…hashtag, they are still giving the option to participate. Don’t think the point is to allow only brands to contribute to the convo.— Shane Adams (@shaneadams) December 11, 2013

As someone who has attended a lot of conferences and seen how aggressive or just annoying vendors can get with consumer brands, I understand why there would be some tension on this issue. And I understand why a "brands only" event would have some appeal.

But the conversations coming out of this week's #brandsonly conference raise several issues that are probably worth debating:

• How do we define a brand these days? Is it a company that only targets consumers? If so, why are so many of the Brands-Only Summit attendees from B2B services like staffing company Adecco, IT hardware provider EMC and aerospace firm BAE Systems?
• Brand marketers spend every day of their professional lives trying to get sales messages in front of potential customers, so is it hypocritical to get upset when vendors do the same?
• What is the point of an event hashtag, anyway? Is it primarily to help attendees better engage with the content and their fellow audience members? Or is it a way to propagate speakers' information to a larger crowd that couldn't or normally wouldn't attend?
• Where do agencies fit in this mix? They're vendors, certainly, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that a content-creating powerhouse like 360i wouldn't bring a lot to the table at these events.

On that last note, at least the agency types appreciate they haven't been perma-banned from listening in:

Learning a lot of #brandsonly secrets from the tweets I'm seeing. Luckily, they forgot to ban agency folk from the hashtag.— Michael Kasberg (@ksbrg) December 10, 2013