Photo courtesy of Gidzy
By Jenn Riggle
In order to effectively use Twitter, you need the right tools. And for me, it’s TweetDeck and hashtags.
You’ve probably heard your friends or colleagues complain that Twitter can be such a time drain. But as we all know, there’s No Pain, No Gain, and you need to invest time and energy in order to be good at anything (let alone social media). The good news is that using hashtags can make Twitter more manageable so you can spend your time more efficiently and ultimately, reach the people you want to reach.
Here’s what you need to know: A hashtag is any word in Twitter that is immediately preceded by the ‘#’ symbol (a.k.a the hash). While seemingly a simple thing, hashtags can transform your Twitter experience by allowing you to separate the wheat from the chaff so you can focus on the information that’s important to you.
There are four basic reasons why people should use Twitter hashtags. These include:
- Finding a virtual community – Whether you’re a hospital trying to find a way to connect to your community or young mom trying to find other parents on Twitter, hashtags can help. Most cities or regions have their own hashtag (for examples #RVA is the hashtag for Richmond, Va.). By using this hashtag, hospitals can mark their tweets as being relevant to Richmond residents. By the same token, a young mom can conduct a search for #parenting to find out what other parents are saying on Twitter. If you’re using TweetDeck, you simply create a column and type in the hashtag of your choice. This will allow you to track, in real time, what people are tweeting with this hashtag, making it easier for you to join the conversation.
- Reaching your audience – Hashtags are like zip codes – they help make sure your tweets go to the right people. With the constant flow of tweets being sent out every day, it’s easy for your tweet to get lost. By attaching a hashtag to your tweet, you increase the chance that the right people will find your post, which will help you attract new followers and foster dialogue.
- Locating information – Hashtags are an easy way to search Twitter by topic. By saving a hashtag search in a column on TweetDeck, it makes it easier to track what’s being said about a certain subject. To be included in this group, simply include the same hashtag in your tweets. Geekpreneur has some great tips on how to use Twitter hashtags to tweet more effectively.
- Promoting an event – It’s common practice for event organizers to create a hashtag so people can live-tweet what they learn during the conference. Not only does this help event organizers promote their event, it allows people who aren’t able to attend to keep track of news from the conference. In a lot of ways, it’s more effective than Second Life as a way to virtually attend a conference.
So how do you pick a hashtag? Probably the easiest thing to do is go to Hashtags.org or Twubs to discover which hashtags are being used, which ones are most popular and whether people have posted recent tweets with these hashtags. This information will help you determine whether you want your post associated with a particular hashtag. I think you’ll eventually find a couple of key hashtags that you’ll use on a regular basis and these will become the ones you follow.
Another question you should ask yourself is whether you should create your own hashtag or use an existing one. If you’re planning to create your own, remember to keep it short since you only have 140 characters per tweet. However, I’m a big believer in using existing hashtag if it already has a following.
Words of Wisdom
It’s important to note that you can have too much of a good thing. If you use hashtags in all of your tweets or use multiple hashtags in one post, you can look like a spammer. It’s better to use them sparingly and only when you want to mark you tweet as having information that will interest a specific audience. According to Persistence Marketing, you should never include a hashtag that isn’t related to the content of your tweet.
There’s also a relatively new phenomenon called hashtag hijacking, where people “crash the party” by posting disgruntled tweets using an event’s hashtag. While this doesn’t have direct impact for most people, it’s definitely should be on the radar screen of event organizers.
Remember: Twitter is like a marathon, you have to be in it for the long haul. So take it one tweet at a time.
Jenn – a great time to post this.
A friend and I have launched a campaign this week called #BeMyGuest (a month of ‘mutual’ blogging) and the hashtag has been the single most important element of the campaign.
It has allowed bloggers to find each other to swap posts and promote the campaign.
If you’d like to find out more, visit: http://bit.ly/bemyguest1
Adam
Good points on how hashtags can make it easier to be heard on Twitter but…they apparently make it harder for your Tweets to be indexed on Google. Here is an interview with a Google engineer who says that Google equates hashtags with spam and penalizes them:
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/24353/page2/
Hi Jeff- Thanks for sharing the Technology Review article. I still think hashtags make it easier for manage Twitter — even if it impacts SEO. People should be selective when choosing hashtags. A good rule of thumb: The more specific the hashtag, the targeted the group, so you’ll see more meaningful info. For example, you’ll see fewer spammers on #FDASM vs. #wellness. Thanks again!
Hi Jenn, I am relatively new to twitter and wasnt much aware of hasthags and when i read your post i did some fiddling with my twitter and managed to find related virtual communities for Public Relations and Social Media. It was very helpful.
I am doing a lot of work on social media and have created a webcast on the uses, benefits and meanings behind social media. Feel free to take a look : hhtp://reflectivepr.wordpress.com
I didn’t use twitter that much until I had to (for UNI purposes mainly). At first I was very reluctant to use it, it was so different than facebook. Now I think I prefer it more than facebook simply because I don’t feel this pressure I must upload photos, make a contest out of myself and I don’t get invites to silly applications. But now a new sort of pressure is overtaking me slowly. I catch myself sometimes on waiting for a retweet! Silly as it might sound, but Social Media sometimes get on my nerves because of these little pressures.
http://netasbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/
I use hastags to get more mileage out of my tweets. For example, if I’m tweeting about sale items available at my website I use #deals so that others that might search for shopping deals will also see my tweet. I just wish I knew for sure if this is really effective. Maybe someone will comment about this.
This is a really good article about hashtags because it really simplifies what they are and how they should be used. People go crazy with them and it doesn’t look good and doesn’t serve a purpose either. However, when they’re used correctly, they can be really effective.