Sunday, October 13, 2013

What is a Hashtag and what do you do with hashtags?




What is a Hashtag? 
A hashtag is a label for content. It helps others who are interested in a certain topic, quickly find content on that same topic.
Anyone sharing content on a relevant topic can add the hashtag label to their message. Others searching for that topic, can search for that label to find other messages.

How To Create a Hashtag

No Spaces Allowed

A hashtag can be a single word, an abbreviation, an invented combination of letters and numbers, or a phrase. 
Numbers are OK, but you must also have at least one letter with the numbers — hashtags cannot consist entirely of numbers.

Create Your Own Hashtag 
Anyone can create a hashtag. You could create one of your own or several, if you wish.
All you do to create a hashtag is think it up.  Then start using it in your messages.
Usually you add it to the end of messages.  But you could add it anywhere in the message that makes sense, as long as it’s readable.

Make Hashtags Easy to Remember and Understand
That’s especially important for Twitter where you have a limited character count.  It’s best if a hashtag is an understandable word, phrase or abbreviation.

When Not to Use a Hashtag
Avoid hashtag pollution.  This is using multiple hashtags in a single message.  Any more than two hashtags in a message makes it difficult to read.
It’s considered bad etiquette to add a hashtag to an unrelated message just to get attention. Always make sure your content is relevant to the hashtag you use.