Creating the Twitter Hashtag
If you’ve been using Twitter, you have likely heard of “hashtags”. I must admit that at first I didn’t use them. Why you ask? Well, I knew there were rules about their use, and I didn’t want to misstep or otherwise incur a violation. Okay, so I did some research, and I am writing today to share what I learned.
The first thing one needs to understand is what they are and why to use them. In short, a hashtag is the pound sign preceding a word/s, such as “#SoFunny”; it is used on Twitter as a way to categorize messages, and is commonly used to tweet at events, and otherwise engage conversations. When a topic is “trending” this means that the hashtag associated with it is being tweeted a lot as part of the message (hashtags are often associated with brands, events, sports, teams, celebrities, and other topics that are popular). The advantage of using a hashtag is that it increases the likelihood that your tweet will be read by others since it will be included into the feed for that hashtag.
If you plan to use hashtags, the first thing you need to do is some research. Here you should decide on a word, or words that you think will effectively convey your topic. Next you need to see if it has been registered, or is otherwise used often. The reason being is that the meaning of what you think the hashtag should represent might be vastly different from its current use on Twitter (in this case your tweets may have no relevancy based upon the popular usage. and might result in irritation from others who use it). For most businesses you would want to select a hashtag that is closely related with your brand or industry. I did some research for my own Industry and found that #WebDev is the most popular tag for my type of work. Of course there were others such as #webdesign, #webdevelopment, etc. but these had a lower ranking value. You can research a hashtag popularity ranking at: https://hashtagify.me/#hashtags
Once you’ve chosen a hashtag, check to see if it has been registered. To do this simply go to the following hashtag directory website and use the search field: https://hashtagdictionary.com/ If you have a great hashtag in mind and it hasn’t yet been registered, then certainly take a moment to register it. You can do this at: https://twubs.com/p/register-hashtag
But to be clear …. no, one does not need to register a hashtag to use it, but the general consensus is that if you do register it will get used more often, and if you register it is less likely that others will use it for purposes separate from what your intention is.
Hashtag Specifics
When choosing a hashtag name it is important to keep it short (remember that Twitter has a 140 character limit), and make sure it is easy to remember. A hashtag can be upper or lowercase, or a combination thereof, though most feel that the best option is use a capital on the first letter of the word/s. For example: #AGoodHashtag. But as you can see there are no spaces, and you shouldn’t use hyphens or underscores since upon being converted to links by Twitter the first part (before hyphen) will be linked to, and this second part won’t be.
One suggestion I read is that if you find that your competition or customers are using a different tag and it is getting broad traction, do not be afraid to adopt it. Of course this is only applicable if the hashtag is general in nature, not business specific. On a final note, don’t use more than 3 hashtags per tweet. I have read that excessive use of them can get you banned from Twitter, and that Google penalizes tweets with too many. Whether this is true or not, too many hashtags makes the text difficult to read.
Promoting the Hashtag
Once you start tweeting with your hashtag, you will want to promote it. One suggestion is to include it on your products and ads. The advantage of this is that the tag will become clearly associated with you and/or your business. But … you must use it, otherwise you may find it has been adopted by others for their own purposes.
Beyond Twitter, hashtags are also becoming increasingly popular on other social media, such as Facebook pages. For this reason it is suggested that you use your hashtags on all of your social properties (where possible) to promote interest to your Tweets.
Use the Hashtag
The first thing one should think of is how to encapsulate there message within the 140 character limit. Most suggest tweeting creatively, and if an event or topic is important then refresh and recreate your message periodically, but don’t just retweet your previous message.
Encourage Participation
One suggestion I read noted to use an embed widget on your website wherein the hashtag related tweets are brought into an interface. This would be similar to just having your tweets come into your web page or blog, but in this case the conversation would be everything relating to the hashtag, not just your own content. The advantage here is it will allow visitors to participate in a conversation without the need to follow you in Twitter. Or if your hashtag is getting a lot of use you might also want to consider creating a hashtag landing page. This allows your visitors to view all of your tweets for that hashtag within your web site.
As a final thought, you might want to consider starting a tweet-chat. A tweet-chat is a scheduled event that you moderate around your industry, product or service. People interested in your topic use your hashtag to follow your conversation and tweet about questions that you post, and moderate. To initiate one, you would pick a time and market it. Once it is started, you can post new questions during the scheduled time frame that people will respond to.
Hashtags present a great strategic value for mobilizing, connecting and engaging your customers. The experts note that the strategy behind how you use them is very important, and to make sure you register your hashtags to offer some level of protection for your brand.
