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I promised you an Easter Basket of social media tips. Below is the latest “golden egg” – just for you! 
The cocktail party of social media. Or, as some say, the social media telephone.
Of the social networks, this 140 character communication channel seems to stump the most people.
But really, once you get going, and understand the @replies, the RTs, and the #FFs, Twitter really can be fun!
So, What's A Hashtag?
You saw one a few lines above - #FF (short for "Follow Friday"). Every Friday on Twitter you can give credit to those you feel are groovy in your Twitter stream. Quite nifty!
Hashtags are used to call attention to a word or phase as a topic.
Here are some example hashtags to look for:
- #socialmedia
- #smallbiz
- #nonprofit
- #blogchat
- #b2b
- #govt
Today, popular hashtags were: #RoyalWedding, #RoyalWedBiz, #proudtobebritish, and #NASA.
Use Hashtags To Attract New Followers
Hashtags are quite often used for events, and socially savvy group members will tweet from conferences, gatherings, and webinars using a specific hashtag.
Here is a collection of my tweets from a recent webinar done by HubSpot on "5 Key Tools On Effective Facebook Marketing":
http://keepstream.com/connectyou/hashtag-5tools
Tweeting with #hashtags is a great way to publicize online what you and what your organization are all about.
You can direct friends, colleagues, and potential customers to look for a hashtag that you assign. In turn, they will hopefully be intrigued enough to follow you and become more involved in your business or nonprofit efforts.
You can also search for hashtags based on your interests -- There are many, many!
By picking up on hashtags, you can find others to follow, and in turn, they may follow you too. At the very least, you have found others with like interests.
Any questions about Hashtags?
What did I miss?
How will you use #hashtags in your Twitter strategy?
Please tell me in the comment box below! :)
** Have you tried the Facebook Send button yet? Try it - look below...
18 Replies
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The only reason my Twitter profile looks amazing is WizUgo. It started increasing my follower’s list in a few days. The results were steady and legit. The most important part is this tool is totally safe i.e., your Twitter account won’t get banned from it.
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Joseph, It is very easy to put together a terrific Twitter profile without using tools – free or paid. Many times, the platforms claiming to help increase Twitter followers do so in controversial ways putting Twitter profiles at risk on the Twitter platform. I would not want my readers to be mislead. In turn, I recommend always researching ANY tool for reputation, abiding by terms of service, and delivering what is promised. Further, just because a profile is not banned from Twitter now does not mean it won’t be in the future. Instagram just made changes to penalize accounts using tools for engagement and Twitter followers that it felt gamed the rules. Twitter could opt to do that at any moment. I’ve not heard of WizUgo. That’s not to say it isn’t a good tool. However, I would hope future readers would consider the whole comment here as an example of being conscientious about their online presence. Thank you for your comment, ~Keri
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I am currently getting taught about SEO and internet marketing. I have been told how important it is and have been trying to get followers. I still don’t understand how people actually read posts on twitter or facebook. I know people always update there status but how can someone following 100 different people can actually follow what they are up to. Obviously the hashtags are designed to make apost stand out. It is huge so I will need to learn, more reading of post like yours I guess.
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Ryan, These days knowledge of the Internet is essential, and in my opinion, so is some awareness of online marketing. SEO is a bit more tricky, but with the available plugins and training videos found on YouTube, most people could activate some of the basics. Not sure what you mean by, “I still don’t understand how people actually read posts on Twitter or Facebook.” But you mention following large numbers of people on Twitter, and how it is possible to keep up with all of that. I thought I had done a post about Twitter lists. And, thanks to you, I found that I touched on this topic on a few posts, but have not written a good, resourceful post. So, that I’ll need to do soon. And I hope you will read it. Mainly, use Twitter lists to break people into groups. That is a very good way to keep heads or tails of things going on with your tweeps. 🙂 Hashtags are meant to make a tweet stand out. It is recommended that you stay away from that on Facebook. In fact, I don’t recommend feeding Twitter to Facebook at all. And I do not believe it is helpful to send Facebook updates to Twitter either. People tend not to click the links — Both platforms propagate differently. Hopefully that has given you more to go on. Please feel free to post addtional questions. I will answer them to my best ability. Thank you for your comment, ~Keri
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Hey Keri, I’m new to Twitter and I’m glad I stumble on your post, Thanks for sharing this, now I know the importance of hash tags.
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Ben, Twitter is an interesting network. At first, I was not a fan. But as I used it more and more, it’s quickly become my favorite social network. Hashtags are very important in connecting with people of like interest and attracting those in your target market if you are using it for business. Please feel free to stop back and ask questions here, or tweet me: @connectyou. Tweet ya later, 🙂 ~Keri
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Hi Keri, Nice article – but my question is, how can I put a link on my site that, when clicked, makes a user tweet that page WITH the hashtag in it? As in #wootheweb automatically as part of the tweet?
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Greg, Thank you so much for visiting and for your compliment. If your website is formatted in WordPress, there are plugins that will allow you to place a desired hashtag in certain posts. “Tweet Old Post” is one – but it is auto-generated by you. There may be others that allow you to insert a hashtag in the share mechanism, such as you say. However, I do not use them, as I do not want to dictate to my followers that they have to tweet specific things or feel that they have to promote me or my work. I hope that they will share my work if they feel enthused enough to do so. And, of course, if I tweet with a specific hashtag, there is a higher possibility the hashtag will be included. One way you could generate a lot of action on the #wootheweb hashtag is to host a regular Twitter chat. Choose your theme, invite your crowd, and encourage them to invite others. This will create a knowledge about the hashtag, and hopefully enough enthusiasm that tweeps would use the hashtag freely without your specific encouragement. 🙂 I’ll work on getting a more specific answer for you on plugins offering hashtag abilities. Hope that helps, ~Keri
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I am still new to Twitter.. but I’m hoping that the use of hashtags will help with my Avon business, which is still starting out. One funny thing I’ve noticed is that when I get followers, I’ll soon find them gone… maybe I’m not interacting with them enough? Anyway, hoping to attract more attention and get more conversations flowing with hashtags. Thanks for the posting.. Hoping to read more soon! Yuriko
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Yuriko, Very cute picture – nice to meet you here! Hashtags will put you in touch with specific groups – try that and see how it works. Regarding your followers. There are many tweeters tweeting that are playing numbers games. Have you heard of Twellow? It is like the Twitter yellow pages. You can go to Twellow.com and search for connections based on key words. Hope that helps! 🙂 ~Keri
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Keri, aloha. This is a much needed post because so many people miss the terrific opportunities that exist with hashtags. Interestingly enough, I met some people who have become friends on twitter when I kept seeing certain hashtags with tweets go by for some tweetchats. Though I didn’t know what a tweetchat was at the time, I liked what I was reading so asked if I could “join” the party. The rest as they say is history. A blogger friend of mine was changing the focus of her blog to concentrate on special needs children both because she is a special needs teacher and because she has a special needs child. What I told her to do was to run hashtags for special needs, autism, autistic and other topics related to her niche. She was thrilled with the results and the connections she made when she used hashtags. Quite frequently I use a hashtag when I tweet something because if does get people’s attention. Since I appreciate seeing a hashtag or two, I “assume” others do as well. Best wishes for a terrific week, Keri. See you in the twitterverse. Aloha. Janet
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Janet, Aloha – Great to see you here! 🙂 I too have been using more and more hashtags. And it started just as you described. I saw one or two, and found interest in their conversation path. Terrific strategy you recommended. Sounds like it went well for your friend! You have a terrific week too – see you in the #twitterverse!! 🙂 Will you be celebrating Cinco de Mayo? ~Keri
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