Email Marketing News and Tips

Ever wonder why people use Twitter with “#” in front of certain words or phrases?  These are called #hashtags.  I see them as a way for people to easily search your Tweets based on content.  According to the Twitter Fan Wiki:

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.

Basically, it’s an easy way to track conversation threads across Twitter. In Time Magazine’s recent article, “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live“, they explain the use of hashtags during a day-long conference.

At the outset of the conference, our hosts announced that anyone who wanted to post live commentary about the event via Twitter should include the word #hackedu in his 140 characters. In the room, a large display screen showed a running feed of tweets. Then we all started talking…. within half an hour or so, word began to seep out into the Twittersphere… Then others joined the conversation, adding their observations or proposing topics for further exploration.

Below are excerps from the Twitter Fan Wiki site that I found very useful.

How To Use Hashtags

First, follow @hashtags on Twitter. They will follow you back automatically, and your hashtags will be tracked.

Next, start using hashtags in your tweets, preceding key words. It can be helpful to do a little research first, to find out if the subject you’re tweeting already has an established hashtag.

Finally, track other tweets on the subjects you’re interested in (ie: those containing the appropriate hashtags) by browsing/searching at Hashtags.org or TwitterGroups. You can set it up with RSS feeds as well.

The use of hashtags is still an emergent phenomena, and as such, etiquette is negotiable, though some have already expressed their distaste for hashtags.

Used sparingly and respectfully, hashtags can provide useful context and cues for recall, as well as increased utility for the track feature. Used excessively can cause annoyance, confusion or frustration, and may lead people to stop following you. It’s best to use hashtags explicitly when they’re going to add value, rather than on every word in an update.

A good rule of thumb to follow is to focus on your update first, and only if it quantitatively adds value, to append one-three hashtags. There are no hard and fast rules, but Twitter should continue to be about answering the simple question: “What are you doing” rather than “What tags apply to what you’re doing?”

Suggestions and tips

hashtags.org provides real-time tracking of Twitter hashtags. Opt-in by following @hashtags to have your hashtags tracked.  Similarly, Twemes offers real-time tracking without the necessity of following a specific Twitter account.  Also, with their purchase of Summize, Twitter itself now offers some support of hashtags at their search engine: http://search.twitter.com

Example Uses…

• Events or conferences, e.g.: “Tara’s presentation on communities was great! #barcampblock”
• Disasters: “#sandiegofire A shelter has opened up downtown for fire refugees.”
• Memes: “My #themeword for 2008 is conduct.”
• Context: “I can’t believe anyone would design software like this! #microsoftoffice”
• Recall: “Buy some toilet paper. #todo”
• Quote: “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

Hashtags can easily be used in Boomerang’s TwitterBlog feature as well…check it out.