Who’d a thought a simple symbol like the pound sign followed by text would revolutionize the social web? But it did...
The “#” hashtag first showed up on Twitter back in 2007. Since then it has grown in popularity and you can use them on any social web platform like Instagram, Yelp, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Flickr, etc. etc... You can also use them in your Activerain Blog and you can search hashtags using Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
What is a hashtag? Think context and category. When content purveyors (that’s you) use a hashtag in their post it makes the post easily searchable. So it’s a great way to follow particular conversations about a place, thing, topic, etc.
An easy way to see this is go to Google and search #mobilecomcamp for example. This is the hashtag we use in our new 3 clock hour class.
Among the results you'll find for #mobilecomcamp online you should find...
#mobilecomcamp #mcc1 #sephora #uvillage #chocolate ...
mobilecomcamp | Tumblr
René Fabre on Instagram: “Love the Japanese teapots at ...
I love the #fountains in #seattle #MobileComCamp
In session at #uvillage #mobilecomcamp at #teavana...
There is no “Ye Olde Book of Official Hashtags”... People for the most part make them up then upon discovery others adopt them to follow (and declare) conversations and topical threads... One of the early uses I discovered was #pacificnorthwest but then I soon discovered more were using #pnw because of its brevity.
The rules are simple...
Hashtags start with the pound sign “#” followed by text with no spaces or special characters. The text is not case sensitive. So if you want to know what conversations are going on about your town, search that platform (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.) or the search engines for... #Seattle or #SanDiego or #Denver or #Baltimore etc. If like Vancouver, there’s two of them... Then you'll find hastags like #VancouverWA or #VancouverBC ...
In the class we meet in urban villages so with some homework early on I found that the University Village in Seattle uses #uvillage for its hashtag. For the most part the Seattle posts show up here but there are other University Villages so you can focus by adding #Seattle... More important though was discovering that most of the stores in the village have twitter accounts and that is one of the major means of communication with the public. So we follow, contribute, and engage these businesses.
We just started new sessions of #mobilecomcamp in Lynnwood, WA at #alderwoodmall another at #WestfieldSC (Westfield Southcenter Mall in Tukwila) and #SouthHillMall in Puyallup. If you search these hashtags you’ll find a lot of my posts during these classes and those of my team mates and #mobilecomcamp participants.
In a real estate context I’d be thinking about using them like #neighborhood #city and depending (geographically) where you look you’ll find a few savvy agents out there using #realestate #homeforsale #openhouse etc. Millennials (of course) are quickly adopting hashtags to quickly find conversations of interest and information.
When you publish content to any social platform think about the fact they all have millions of users. When you post to “public” that’s almost like infinity, unless the member is connected to you as a friend or following you. Most of your efforts posted to “public” except by luck of timing and/or accident will most likely never be seen.
The hashtag helps define the context and category and makes it searchable... Another thing to note is on most sites you’ll see that area where they show, “trending topics.” Think about it this way... If there’s something of major public interest trending that’s a lot of eyes and attention following a particular conversation or topic.
Please don’t exploit hashtags with a shameless self promotion. It's totaly rude to throw something into the convo thread that has absolutely nothing to offer. People who do that look really rude and dumb. Yet it can be a great opportunity for you to show up in a huge conversation and make your presence known to a large group with a shared interest.
AND... One last bit of advice. If you're going to invent a hastag be sure to search it online first before you use it! Some other crowd may already be using it for a conversation that just might be way way way off topic than the one you are intending. ;O)
If you want to learn more about hashtags, here's a great post: Hashtags Explained on takeflyte.com...
As I’m finishing this post I see that #AppleLive is trending this afternoon at #1 on Twitter.
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