See that? It's more complex than you think...
Well, we survived half term. The time when Twitter is swamped by schoolkids, contracts Beiber Fever and forces us all to give up on trending topics. As a news provider or trend monitor, Twitter takes a beating every time the schools are out. Why?
Because the kids know how to use #hashtags. And you don’t.
Fortunately though, any fool can use a hashtag properly (that’s how Beiber trends consistently), if they know what they’re doing. So follow these guidelines and together, we’ll keep JLS out of the trending topics. For good.
How to Use Hashtags
Make it Snappy: #followbackfamily is always going to work better than #pleasefollowme. It’s inclusive, has a nice bit of alliteration going for it, and it’s snappy.
Be Sparing: #this #doesn’t #ever #work #so #please #stop #doing #it. Two tags per Tweet, tops.
Check for Existing Tags: If people have embraced #lufc, you’ll get nowhere appending your footy-based Tweets with #leedsunited.
Don’t Get Too Attached: Remember when we all loved #FollowFriday? Well that’s now #FF. So be prepared to change.
So, how do you use hashtags? Leave your best hashtaggery insights in the comments section below, and we might just make it through the Christmas break.
1 comment
Doktorb says:
Nov 10, 2011
Great post. Hashtags evolve and adapt (for one thing, they won’t be spellchecked in Chrome for much longer, I suspect).
You are right about the sense of consensus which breaks out with them. A very specific example – there are very significant parliamentary boundary changes in the UK at the moment and for each region of the country public meetings are taking place. My region opened the whole process, so without any hashtags to go off, I just chose what came naturally (#bcommnw – Boundary Commission North West).
I am happy to see variants on that theme followed – bcommlon, bcommse and so on – all from my initial idea. Some use #boundarycommission…and they will fail to connect with regionally specific details.
I am not sure about the “two maximum” rule. If URL shorteners do their job, I would be comfortable with a maximum four?