Need to Know #Hashtags

When exploring the world of Twitter you will soon become familiar with this little symbol - #.  This is a hash and is used on Twitter to create what is known as a #Hashtag. A hashtag is created when you put the hash symbol in front of any word. This then indexes that word on Twitter becoming a trend that people can search by to find commonly themed tweets. Each day on Twitter the most popular of these become 'trending topics'.

Why do you need to know this? Well firstly because joining in the conversation of popular trends is one good way to get noticed. Secondly using your own hashtags to highlight keywords within your tweets will help drive relevent followers to your Twitter page. Thirdly, knowing a few key common hashtags can help you not only build following, but possibly gather PR opportunities for your business.

 

Need to know #Hashtags

#SBS – A Weekly competition run by Dragon’s Den’s @TheoPaphitis.  Tweet @ him your business outline each Sunday evening between 5pm and 7pm. He chooses a handful of the best ones to retweet. #SBS winners get a certificate from the man himself and a great deal of Twitter kudos.

#WOW – Women on Wednesday is a competition run by @Jacqueline_Gold. Tweet at her what your women lead business is between 1pm and 3pm on Wednesdays using this hashtag to be in with a chance of winning a RT.

#FF – Follow on Friday – Every Friday Twitter users use this hashtag to recommend to their followers who they should be following this week. It’s a nice way to build rapport and give a mention to the deserving.

#JournoRequests – Journalists use this hashtag to draw attention to their tweets asking for people to be featured in their latest articles. For businesses this is great as you can keep an eye out for PR opportunities that fit in with your business and tweet a reply.

#DidYouKnow – This hashtags is followed by those who are interested in facts. See if you can incorporate it into factual tweets about your industry

#Socent – Are you a Social Enterprise? This Twitter hashtag links all things Social Enterprise, so use this in selective tweets to join the conversation

Thinking about hashtagging some keywords in your tweet to get it noticed? You can stop by Hashtags.org and run a search on your hashtag to check its popularity and best times to use it. Similarly Tagdef.com will help you identify hashtags trending today, regularly popular, all time top used tags and to check your proposed tags popularity. It will also help you to understand what a particular hashtag means if you spot an unfamiliar one that you want to check out.