Hashtag Primer: Using hashtags to find relevant Twitter conversations

On 20th Jun 2011, In Life Online, Social Media , by Jono Alderson

Definition: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet.  It was originally created by Twitter users as a way to categorise messages, so that a conversation could be heard above the general twitter-noise, and then adopted formally by the good tweeps at Twitter.

  • People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their tweet to categorise those tweets to show more easily in twitter Search.
  • Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other tweets in that category
  • Hashtags can occur anywhere in the tweet
  • Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics
  • Susan Orlean explains why hashtags aren’t always about keywords and SEO in this insightful article from the New Yorker.

Example #royalwedding and #theapprentice have both been popular in the UK.  People often “tweet on a hashtag” during a live or televised event, such as X-factor, or a sports fixture.

Using hashtags

  • If you tweet with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your tweet
  • Don’t #spam #with #hashtags. Don’t over-tag a single Tweet.  Best practice seems to be no more than 3 hashtags per tweet
  • Use hashtags only on tweets relevant to the topic – don’t hashtag hijack like this swiftly deleted one from @KennethCole:

twitter hijack

  • Watch a hashtag (and nothing else) using a tool like TweetChat
  • Measure the use of a hashtag with a tool like TweetReach
  • Silence a hashtag (without unfollowing any culprit users) with Muuter.

There are various directories of hashtags like TagDef, or Hashtags.org and you can also claim a hashtag (and add video and other media) at Twubs .

Hashtags in combination with published times create twitterchats, or twitter parties.  Parties tend to be ad-hoc one-off events publicised across other channels to gain twitter followers (also product launches) , whereas twitterchats bring people who share interests together on a regular basis.  This is a publicly edited list of twitterchats – thanks to @twchats. You can also find and schedule your own twitterchat.

So #seeyouontwitter !

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