Image by Search Engine People Blog via Flickr
When you see a pound sign – # – followed by words or letters in Twitter you are seeing what’s known as Twitter Hashtags or Tags. Hashtags offer an easy way to do a keyword search on a topic or to define your posting under a topic. For example, if you tweet about a topic related to Social Media you might want to add #socialmedia to your tweet. People searching for information on this topic will see your tweets, along with others who are tweeting about it.
In some cases, letters or a combination of letters and numbers, are created for a live event so participants can post, in real time, event sharing information with other participants or their followers or anyone who keys in the hashtag name. For example, people who sign up for the annual Social Media Success Summit will tweet about it in real time will tag their tweets with #smss.
According to Twitag.com: “All words posted in messages that begin with a hash (#) are considered a tag or hashtag.” I found it interesting that Twitag.com reveals how hastags or originated. “Hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter (Twitter user) used the tag #sandiegofire to identify his updates related to the disaster.”
By following hashtag topics you’ll learn about current and upcoming events, and be able to stay on top of the most trending topics, and even get in on the conversation and show off your expertise!
Tweeting about events in real time using hashtags will help your followers learn something new. They can also use a hastag you created as a saved search and reuse your hashtag to follow up, or add information to discussions you created.
In my next blog I’ll share some of the tools you can use to follow hashtag conversations.
