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| Social Media Creator Group |
In speaking with people about Twitter, I’m often asked about hashtags. People ask: What is a hashtag? What do Hashtags do? How do you create a hashtag?
1. What is a Hashtag?
A Twitter hashtag is a phrase
with a pound sign (#) in front of it. Pretty simple huh? Here are some hastag
examples: #socialmedia #tech and #quotes.
2. What do Hashtags do?
A hashtag organizes the conversations of Twitter
users into one stream. These streams can
be searched using a third-party apps or on Twitter itself. When Twitter users tweet
about the same topic using a hashtag, all the tweets carrying specific hashtags
will appear in the same stream. Hashtags
can be used to carryon conversations between Twitter users who are not even
connected. So in this way, popular
hashtags become trending topics.
Trending topics can include tweets using a specific hashtag that many
people are using at the same time. Hashtags
can be used for personal reasons such as a cause, in-person events, conferences, webinars, or marketing campaigns.
3. Hashtag creation
No tools are necessary to
create hashtags. As stated above, hashtags are simply text preceded by a #
sign. Hashtags can be placed in the beginning, middle, or end of a tweet. It doesn’t matter. Simply pick a keyword and put a # sign in front of the
key word. Although Twitter hashtags are
quick and easy to create, there are some traps you can fall into if you're new
to creating them. Let’s look at these possible pitfalls and some best practices
to keep in mind if you're thinking of creating one to support your marketing
efforts.
***BONUS TIP***
Best Practice
1) Check how many people are
using the hashtag. If you plan on using a particular hashtag for a specific event
and the keyword is being used by others, pick another key word. Visit http://www.Search.Twitter.com and enter
your hashtag in the search box to find out more about the hashtag. If there is a lot of conversation around it
already, you might want to revisit your decision and pick something that isn’t
as frequently used. In that way, you will reduce the chances of people who are
not a part of your target audience entering/diluting the conversation you want
to take place.
Read more at: http://www.smcreator.yolasite.com
