When I first started using Twitter earlier in the year, I didn’t really understand #hashtags. As a result, I didn’t utilize them. However, I’ve now started using at least one hashtag in all my tweets and my Twitter experience has improved drastically as a result.
Hashtags as Keywords
One simple way of thinking of hashtags is as keyword tags that help label your tweets. If you use a blogging platform like WordPress or social media sites like Flickr, you’re probably already familiar with the idea of using keywords to help tag your blog posts or photos. Keyword tags allow people to more easily find related content of interest. This is EXACTLY why you want to use hashtags — more people are likely to find your Twitter account as a result.
How Hashtags Help People Find You on Twitter
There at least a couple ways that hashtags help people find you on Twitter. The most basic is that in the Twitter interface, hashtags are hyperlinks. When people click a hashtag that interests them, say #twitter, they receive real-time search results of other tweets that have utilized that hashtag. Hashtags are also accessible via various Twitter APIs — there are a plethora of web apps that utilize the Twitter API like foller.me and the Twitter data visualization tool Mentionmap.
Hashtags Will Improve Your Twitter Experience
Utilizing hashtags not only allows other people to find you on Twitter, but also allows you to find other Twitter users who you many benefit from following. Given that many developers love playing around with the Twitter API, by using hashtags you’re also providing them with raw material to help build the next super-cool Twitter API-based app. These apps also provide yet another avenue for people to find you on Twitter.
Twitip has many other neat articles on hashtags that are worth reading. For new Twitter users who may still be a little puzzled by hashtags, my hope is that re-conceptualizing them as keyword tags will help you benefit more from the one of the most interesting and useful social media tools available on the Web today.
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@papajs
Thanks for that blog Marcus, really helpful for new users like ourselves.
So, for a beginner, are their standard hashtags for certain topics? A directory of hashtags?
@JohnAguiar
Great post,, I started using the hashtag #moneydummyblog that way if people would search that all my important posts, and rt’s and replies would pop up.
You def gave me a few more ideas..
@sharonmostyn
Great post! I use hashtags to find topics of interest (especially events that I would have liked to attend but couldn’t) and from those hashtags I can find others who are interested in the same topics as well as useful links.
@RunningQuest
Thanks for this post. What I’ve never understood is why not just use the keywords you think your audience is going to be looking for? Afterall, you can search for words, not just those with a hashtag before them. I personally don’t like the way hashtags look.
@TwtrCoach
Well, I use hashtags a lot. But never thought about using it more creative as a keyword.
Darn.. this is “Tip Of The Day”. TXS…
I’ll award this tip a retweet..
Guess I should use #twitip…
Cheers.. Are
@billbolmeier
Yes, I keep forgetting about hashtags. I’ll have to keep experimenting. Twitter’s real-time search is incredible. They do provide interesting ways for people to describe their tweets.
@ecoquestohio
Thanks for the post I’m going with #green since most of the products I market are eco and green friendly!
@MarcusBarnes
Hi Everyone!
Steve: I was originally using hashtags.org to find ideas for useful hashtags to use, but they continue to have scaling issues – you may get an error 503 page (overcapacity) when you visit (I just did).
@RunningQuest: The week before writing this post, I was experimenting with using hashtags within my tweets — I have to agree that I don’t like the way they look too as they make tweets harder to read. One of the great things about the Twitter 140 character limit is that you can scan quickly. That said, including hashtags at the end of your tweets allows you to take advantage of any traffic to your profile generated via web applications (like Mentionmap) that utilize the Twitter API and hashtag data, yet not compromise the readability or your tweets. You’ll notice that in the majority of my tweets that include hashtags, I use 2 or 3 at the very end — just as if they were keywords.
@qova
This is a really great post. I passed it along, blogged about it, and I am applying it to my own tweeting. Thanks for providing such a simple yet effective argument. Great articulation.