DISQUS

DaveTheCompGuy · 6 months ago

I use TweetDeck and keep an active search column running for both 'Edmonton' and '#yeg' - our airport code, widely used here for this city. Local news people and the main community here uses #yeg. I occasionally get some off-topic stuff from the Edmonton's that are in the UK and KY, but not often.

thefranshea · 6 months ago

Help! I have tried including a hashtag address in my post but it doesn't post as a link. It just posts as regular text. What should I do to get it to post as a link?

I haven't seen this written about anywhere.

I am not talking about a hashtag I created. Simply one I want to acknowledge in my post.

Can you help?

DaveTheCompGuy · 6 months ago

Hashtags aren't links. They're more like keywords, so people can search for them. You'd post a link by using a URL shortening service (like bit.ly) to add a short URL.

Ameda · 4 months ago

Hashtags are a community driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They are just like tags you add on your blog.

jthane · 7 months ago

Sean: Using your example, well, you could have a tweet that reads "taking out the recycling, putting in solar panels, what a busy day"

Now that would be a very GREEN tweet, but someone searching for green tweets might not ever seen this. By adding #green (or whatever) at the end, you're designating the tweet as belonging to that topic, regardless of what the text in the tweet itself is.

At least that's my take on it.

Sean · 7 months ago

Why are hash tags needed is something is just one word? I understand the need for #womentofollow but what's the difference between green and #green?

Corvida Raven · 7 months ago

The hashtag means the tweet your reading is related to an event or movement that's occuring. Versus a random tweet that's passively mentioning green. The hashtag makes a visual relation.

Fitzroy · 7 months ago

http://twitter.com/fitzroy/status/1886448922

Greg Roberts · 7 months ago

#Tag your profile...I mean if you're a musician, have #musician somewhere in your profile....likewise for #Carpenter, #Marketer, #schmuck, what ever...also your Location #ipswichUK #MurrellsInletSC....there is an application being built to search these tags in your profile to use as references for queries....Like Find #Carpenter in #ipswichUK...so you can find a carpenter if you need one.....or #SWM or#SWF if you want a date....or #Marketer if you are looking for people in marketing to follow on twitter #Musician to collaborate with or to play at your sweet sixteen party.....Craig's List, dating network, twitter find and follow all rolled into one....

Corvida Raven · 7 months ago

This is a prime example of how you SHOULDN'T use hashtags!

Dr. Steve Wright · 6 months ago

For those of us who are new to twitter, would you care to explain why this is a bad idea? I'm a psychologist familiar with the research on happiness (much of it within the new "positive psychology" area founded by a former APA president, Martin Seligman), and I was thinking to use my twitter account mainly to offer good quotations about happiness and interesting tidbits from positive psychology. (I also write a blog.) If people interested in positive psychology or happiness can't find me in a search without the hashtags in my profile bio, but could find me with them there, why shouldn't I use them? I've noticed people generally don't do this, but I don't know why. Is it considered spamming? Can they find me without it? Am I expected to use the hashtag only in tweets? It doesn't seem appropriate to use a hashtag behind the word "happiness" in every single quotation about happiness. None of these are rhetorical questions. Like I said, I'm new. - @DrSteveWright

icantstandit · 7 months ago

Hashtags are irritating...With only 140 characters, they just take up space...I don't use them.

Corvida Raven · 7 months ago

We understand. Hashtags aren't for everyone. People using Twitter for personal reasons may have no need to use hashtags.

winepleasures · 7 months ago

Yes still a bit confused by this hashtag - going to try it out. Thanks for the tweet

FrankleeMiDeer · 7 months ago

For Memorial Day and every day: #BringOurChildrenHome

DaveTheCompGuy · 6 months ago

A great thought, but an awfully long tag when you have a 140 character limit.

aimee · 7 months ago

I notice that the article you linked to "Why I Unfollow People Who Use Hashtags On Twitter" is 15 months old. Twitter has changed dramatically in that time and hashtags are, as you say, much more prevalent and more widely understood now than they were then.

Hashtags can be great for instantly identifying people, things, or situations. They are so useful that they've crept into text messages and even spoken conversation!

They can be a bit encoded, though. #farmcat, #jollyoldfarmer and #coopgirl only mean something to me and a few other people.

Hashtags can alternatively be very encompassing and unspecific, such as my friend who recently tweeted that they were going for a #walk!

Corvida Raven · 7 months ago

Aimee though it's 15 months old it's still relevant as I hear it time and time again for people that don't like hashtags.

I find them beneficial and welcome using them, they introduce me into new movements and events.

SilverPolisher · 7 months ago

Hi,
Working today at going to a lecture to celebrate 800 years of Cambridge University. I can read the tweets from the lecturer as he prepares his lecture; weather in his garden, type of red wine etc. I want to know the hashtag that I should use to join the conversation about this lecture. If I make up my own hashtag, and there is already one in use, I am seen as low life, but I cannot find one after some searching.

What is the etiquette her? I think the lecturer should invent the hashtag for their lecture as part of the publicity for the event. Then we could all meet our friends for a coffee before or for a drink afterwards.

Does this make sense?

Mona N. · 7 months ago

Oh Corvida - I probably make you cringe with all my useless hashtags haha. Thanks for this post!

TheMacMommy · 7 months ago

I love #hashtags! I use them whenever I can. I created the #suckit hashtag for @QueenOfSpain a long time ago since she used that term so much and we found it amusing. Now I see lot's of people using it. (I giggle to myself whenever I see others using it.) It's taken on a life of its own now. It's not a nice term, but sometimes when you're frustrated or really wanting to alert people to a bad experience with a company, product, service, etc. you think others should avoid, twitter can serve as a steam vent for those times and #suckit is one of those terms that helps you vent.

You don't want to end up on the #suckit list – it's kind of like being on Mr. Blackwell's Worst Dressed list. That's just one example.

My favorite way to use hashtags is to keep a micro-baby journal about my son, #LD. Most of my closer twitter friends know I'm talking about my son and will also refer to him in an @ as #LD. He's not just LD anymore, he's #LD. It's his nickname now: "pound-L-D."

Now, #LD of course is not a unique hashtag but I'm using it for my personal journal so it doesn't matter. I subscribe to my own twitter RSS feed using Mail.app and NetNewsWire and that way I can archive all of my tweets and #LD makes for a unique search term in a Spotlight query. At any time I can search for #LD using NetNewsWire or Spotlight and I can find a list of all the tweets that have #LD in them which basically gives me a time-stamped little baby journal of all things relating to my little boy.

With another one on the way, I'm working on thinking of a tag for the new baby. During my pregnancy sometimes I tweet things about crazy food I crave so that's tagged #cravings. Again, these tags are searchable so I can query them later and compile a journal of them all. It doesn't matter who else may be using the same hashtag because they won't show up in my RSS feed that I'm using to compile my thoughts.

Anyhow, this is a fun topic. Thanks for posting it. I can understand how people might be annoyed by hashtags, but it's like anything else — twitter is a personal tool and you use it how you see fit. If someone doesn't like the way you use the tool, well, they can just #suckit. ;)

genevangelist · 7 months ago

Great post, Corvida!

While there are many great posts like this about why hashtags are a great way of tracking trending topics, there are some that say in the wholeness of it all, they do absolutely nothing for search. Here is a great article with that point in mind. http://bit.ly/fiSvh

I personally think the best use of hashtags is StockTwits - http://www.stocktwits.com They came up with the idea for using " $$ " at the end of the tweet to stream on the StockTwits community , or use $ in front of the stock ticker symbol you are talking about such as $AAPL for Apple and $GOOG for Google and so on when talking about a trade. StockTwits is by far the most progressive community using such a streamlined search. They even have a Firefox plugin which is pretty awesome that really makes things interesting. I would highly recommend reading more on how they do it here and just checking out how they do it. http://stocktwits.com/help

You know you have a great app when traders join Twitter JUST to use StockTwits!

Peggy Dolane · 7 months ago

Here's a link on how to get an effective # event started on Twitter used by @linkedinexpert, @marismith and @freerangemom http://linkedintobusiness.com/?p=395

Lisa Devaney · 7 months ago

Having a blast with hashtags lately, for:

-Keeping a running journal with #lisaruns

-Starting a new #green hashtag for #greenDIY projects

-Participating in the UK's Channel 4 live surgery programme, with a Twitter Q&A hashtagged as #slive

Good tips about being careful not to overuse hashtags. They are addictive, and it can be tempting to # everything.

@lisadevaney

David Ellis · 5 months ago

I started using #e-prime. Hashtags.org tracks it OK but Twitter and Tweetdeck highlight only the #e and ignore the hyphen. Should hashtags contain alpha characters only?

Swan · 5 months ago

Check out the Twitter Chat List. Over 50 hashtag communities that get together at specific times to discuss a particular topic. http://bit.ly/oXBBu

Tweet the link so that all the chats can grow

rogerblankenbeckler · 2 months ago

Why doesn't my posting appear in trending topics or Reat Time Results? I use the # but my postings never appear.