TwitTips - Volume 2

What are Hashtags (#)?

After reading and researching more about the use of Hashtags and their relevance to the Twitter experience, I have to say I have mixed feelings about them. The Hashtag (#) was developed during the 2007 San Diego forest fires as a way for Tweeter's to search and locate real-time updates related to this specific event.

A Hashtag (#) is placed before a subject to allow for a more successful search on Twitter. The intent of a Hashtag is to allow people to find a particular topic. One recognized Hashtag in the Twittersphere is #followfriday. If you are looking for new followers, search for #followfriday and the Tweets related to this topic will show up. The latest popular Hashtag is #musicmonday where people Tweet about the music they are listening to on Mondays.

Benefits of Hashtags for Business & Community

If you are building a local community around a specific topic that is important to you, the use of a Hashtag will be of benefit. If you are a local business that provides life insurance, for example, you could place a Hashtag in front of the subject of Life Insurance when you Tweet about it. If someone is looking for life insurance using Twitter, your Tweets may come up and they may find your service.

Finding Popular Hashtags

Twitter has recently updated their landing page to include Popular Topics. There you will see topics with and without hashtags. Another resource for finding the most popular Hashtags in real-time is hashtags.org. For more information about hashtags and to track the most popular subjects in real-time, go to http://www.hashtags.org.

To Hashtag or Not?

The debate will continue as to whether or not Hashtags will survive. My guess is that as Twitter continues to develop real-time search, Hashtags will not be necessary to find what you are looking for. If you use Hashtags, don’t overdo it. One or two per Tweet is probably the maximum, but make sure the Hashtag follows a relevant subject, and not just random words.

Upcoming

Next week we will review geographic search and how to utilize this feature on Twitter in order to find new prospects and to get connected with people within your geographic region. Until then, Happy Tweeting! Please follow us at http://www.twitter.com/miraretail

TwitTips - Volume 1

About TwitTips — Twitter has received a lot of attention over the last few months so we are dedicating TwitTips to cover the latest developments with this social media service and to help a business capitalize on marketing opportunities using Twitter. The focus of TwitTips will be to uncover new Twitter services, Twitter terminology, or other cool stuff related to Twitter.

Twitter as a Marketing Tool — In 140 characters or less, tell us about your company. Can you do it? Twitter forces you to keep your message clear and concise. Have you ever had to summarize a position where you were required to stay on subject and be concise? Twitter is very much the same.

TinyURL — For many already involved with Twitter, this is nothing new. But for people that are new to Twitter, a tiny URL is exactly what it says. There are add-ons or plug-ins available through popular web browsers that allow you to take a large URL, make it “tiny”, or condensed, so you can fit the link in your Tweets. Twitter will automatically condense a URL longer than 14 characters, but by using a tiny URL service, you can track the number of times each URL was opened. As an example, we use Hootsuite to condense and track our URLs.

Upcoming — Thank you for spending a moment to read our first in the series of posts. As we continue to write about new tricks for simplifying your Tweeting life, we hope you are able to grab a few gems of information. Next week we will cover hash tags and geographic search. Until next week, happy Tweeting!