So if you’re on Twitter, the likelihood is that you’ve noticed that people post things that immediately follow #’s. What’s crazier is that when you click on whatever it follows, it takes you to a twitter search and you’ll see tons of other people doing the same thing with the same word…
These are called hashtags and they are a way to connect your thought to someone else looking to find the same thing.
Officially speaking,
Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.
Now there are a multitude of uses for hashtags:
- Funny trends like #lameclaimtofame
- Relevant world issues like #iranelections and #NoOnPropH8
- Long standing traditions like #followfriday (which is a way of recommending followers to other tweeps)
- Sharing content that adds value to a topic like #twittertip
However, there are also a multitude of ways to do it wrong:
- Adding a hashtag to every tweet even if it’s irrelevant (Just got the new wordpress app for my iPhone – here goes nothing! #webdesign)
- Adding a dozen hashtags to every tweet (I want #chocolate #icecream likenow. #icanhaz? #kthxbai)
- Adding all the trending hashtags to a single tweet that ends with “Follow meeeeeeee!1!!!111oneone”
Sometimes you’ll find goofball ones to express a secondary thought within a tweet that most people wouldn’t search anyway… Or at least I do…
Catching up on new followers & I saw this tweet by @tropigal: I wouldn’t want to face life without coffee.
followed. #womanofmyownheart
So there are tons of ways to use hashtags and tons of perks as well.
- Find others who are talking about the same things you are and join the conversation
- Keep up on the latest updates from your favorite conferences, events and news stories
- Find potential clients, partners and all around interesting people
So how will you use Twitter hashtags to enhance your Twitter experience?
