A Guide to Twitter Hashtags

By: Serena Carcasole

Twitter is an ever-evolving platform and hashtags are wonderful way to make use of it. Most people may not realize that hashtags—the # sign followed by a key word)—are one of the easiest ways to get your Tweets read by larger groups of people. Because most people’s Tweets are really only read by the followers (and even then your Tweets can quickly get bumped to the bottom of the page), defining hashtags gets you in front of an even larger crowd of people. Plus, that crowd is likely tagging the same subjects and keywords, so it’s just you’ve just filtered yourself into a smaller room of likeminded people.

This means that hash tags can be done for everything from creating a buzz about a political campaign to raising money for a nonprofit to generating business and marketing your company online. Basically anything you can search for on Twitter can be even more relevant with the use of a hashtag. 

Using Hashtags for Business

If you have a company or staff who have Twitter accounts for your business, considering defining a hashtag exclusively for your company. You can do this by identifying a hashtag that is not currently in use and then choosing to associate it with your business. Encourage your employees to use the company hashtag and get other Twitter users interested. This way, you’ll be creating a label and branding your social media marketing efforts at the same time.

Just remember, if you start using a hashtag to identify your business, your reputation is on the line, so make sure it has meaning and relevance to other Twitter users.

Another way to use hashtags, especially if you are a small business, is to write relevant Tweets and use broader defined hashtags. This might mean that if you have a website for nutrition and health, using the tags #healthyeating or #fitness is a better way to categorize those Tweets to be seem by more users.

More Tips for Hashtags:

• Be public. If you have a public account on Twitter, your Tweet with the hashtag will be viewable to anyone who does a search for that subject—so don’t go private on Twitter.
• Don’t spam. Don’t use hashtags as spam. At the least, indicate something in your Tweet that is relevant to your tag. People will ignore your Tweet if they sense it is spam so it’s better to use quality.
• Use it or lose it. If your company has started using a hashtag, encourage the use of it for your organization just as you would use any other marketing tool.
• Hash anywhere. Most people put hashtags at the end of their Tweet. However, hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet—all you have to do is put the # symbol before the word or phrase.
• Lower or uppercase. Your hashtag can be all caps or lowercase letters; as long as you have the # sign next to the phrase, the Tweet will be listed with all the other hashtags in that category.
• Specific. The key to finding or creating a hashtag is in how specific you are with the word or words. Think of hashtags like file folders that you’re digging inside.

Keep in mind that first and foremost hashtags are a search tool. Most people don’t use them in every Tweet, but they are certainly a great resource and a great way to make Twitter work better for you. Do some searches on what interests you and try using a relevant hashtag next time you Tweet.

To find more ways about using hashtags, read my blog, 60 Seconds to Using Twitter Hashtags.