Twitter, Hashtags, and Boring Stuff Like That

"How and Why to Use Twitter Hashtags"
CompuKol Connection (July 3, 2010)

"You have gotten used to using Twitter for your business. You have many followers by now and many people whom you follow in return. You must have noticed some tweets with a word and a # symbol attached.

"Those words and symbols are Twitter hashtags. Hashtags are basically an easy way to catalog and join tweets together on a certain topic. Hashtags make it easier for you to find other tweets on the same topic, while at the same time, you are able to eliminate other tweets that are not relevant.

"Organizers of events and conferences also commonly use hashtags for business. They use them as a way to keep all of the tweets about a specific event in one stream. The organizers may also use hashtags to organize and coordinate updates about events during emergencies...."

There's a pretty good chance that you have a Twitter account - or will in the near future. If you don't, the Lemming should have another post published in a little over an hour.

Still with me?

Okay. The article is a little long for an online publication, but it's a fairly fast read: with headings, which helps.

• How to use hashtags effectively
• Hashtag etiquette
  • Be
    • Short
    • Simple
    • Useful
• Spam
  • Don't
• Choosing the proper hashtags
  • Consider your readers
• Starting your own hashtags
  • Keep it
    • Short
    • Simple
    • Easy to remember
    • Useful
• Monitoring your hashtags
  • This isn't a come-on for some service
• Conclusion
  • Hashtags are cool

There's more, of course, in the article. I plan to re-read it later: I've used hashtags a little, but could (should?) do so more. (On Twitter, I'm Aluwir.)

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A tip of the hat to TweetSmarter, on Twitter, for the heads-up on that article.