What are Hashtags?

Posted January 21, 2009 | by irene | in Social Media | 8 responses

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Have you noticed Twitter tweets going by with words that start with the # sign in them. Like this one? #FBTip

It’s called a hashtag, and is a way for you to organize or add a metatag to your tweets. It groups tweets about the same subject all together.

Are you familiar with Technorati or Flickr tag? Hashtags are the same but instead of adding them to the bottom of your post, you just add them right in your Tweet’s sentence by putting the # sign in front of your word. Any word you want.

Why use a hashtag?
If you add hashtags to your tweets it will be easier to search and find any posts you made on that subject. For example Facebook Marketing guru Mari Smith uses this little word prefaced by a hashtag or pound sign -#FBTip – for all her Facebook tips that she posts to Twitter,

Just do a search on search.twitter.com. You can also search for them on twemes.com, or tweetchat.com.

Start using your own hashtag for your own tips or sets of categories you want instant access to. For example if you are a blues band (are you listening Porkbelly Futures?) you might want to use #bluesmusic whenever you post some news about your band, or CD or other post on topic that would be interesting to other blues music fans.

#bookadvertising would be a good one for Book Trailer Production company Bookshorts.com.

Learn more about Hashtags and how to use them in this video from Facebook Mari.

Get more Free Facebook Tips from Mari.

Become my Twitter Friend on Twitter.com/ireneduma