Using the pound (or hash) symbol (#) when tweeting (posting to Twitter) is a simple way to follow a Twitter conversation or locate groups and people with your same interests – or to reach your target audience.

If Twitter is not part of your company’s social media optimization plan, it should be. Building influence by tweeting your expertise, promoting events, intelligence gathering are all direct business benefits of adding Twitter to your technology toolbox.
Hashtags (#) make Twitter searches – and outreach – simpler and organized:

• #firstnight could promote gallery openings or community art walk fundraisers
• #facecreamoffer would open a conversation about your beauty product and giveaway
• #newhomes lets a realtor show what just came on the market

As with any tag, whether it’s on flickr, twitter, your blog or in your bookmarks, tags are community-driven, defining the context of your tweets – and their value to the community. You can make a tag for any group, subject, event, survey, anything.

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Using the pound (or hash) symbol (#) when tweeting (posting to Twitter) is a simple way to follow a Twitter conversation or locate groups and people with your same interests – or to reach your target audience.

If Twitter is not part of your company’s social media optimization plan, it should be. Building influence by tweeting your expertise, promoting events, intelligence gathering are all direct business benefits of adding Twitter to your technology toolbox.

Hashtags (#) make Twitter searches – and outreach – simpler and organized:

• #firstnight could promote gallery openings or community art walk fundraisers
• #facecreamoffer would open a conversation about your beauty product and giveaway
• #newhomes lets a realtor show what just came on the market

As with any tag, whether it’s on flickr, twitter, your blog or in your bookmarks, tags are community-driven, defining the context of your tweets – and their value to the community. You can make a tag for any group, subject, event, survey, anything.

HOW TO FOLLOW THIS YELLOW BRICK ROAD

Start your use of hashtags by logging in to your Twitter account, doing a search for @hashtags and following them. They follow back automatically, allowing your hashtags to be tracked. With Twitter’s recent addition of an improved search function, it is not necessary to follow @hashtags to benefit from their use. You can visit hashtags.org or twittgroups.com to see what conversations are occurring, even if you are not a Twitter user, which is a good thing. The business value is in the numbers, however. So do a bit of research first to see what is already out there.

Once you’ve decided which word in your tweet to tag, just type # before that word and you are off to see the #wizard.

Now track those conversations of value to you and your fellow travelers on the #yellowbrickroad. See how simple it is?

You can even subscribe to the RSS feed for a particular tag. If you are a NASCAR fan, #nascar is the feed for you to follow. Any new #nascar-tagged updates will be sent to your favorite news reader. You can then use the feed in a myriad of ways, including customizing it by combining with other feeds and adding a blog entry or email post of value to your clients and customers interested in automobiles or car racing.

Hashtags are great for networking, research, building a community around your area of expertise (whether it is business or a hobby). By tagging your tweets, you contribute to the public, searchable archive. And that is what this social networking is all about: community.

FREE BUSINESS BONUS

Duct Tape Marketing has put together a free, downloadable, 9-page beginner’s guide to using Twitter for business.

Gayley Knight is a guest blogger for Terametric. She is Founder/Principal of Business Her Way (a social media management company). Delighting in opening the technology world for your company, Gayley draws on her extensive network and personal business experience to simplify your online world. Showing you best social business practices and simple tech tools designed to increase your business visibility brings social media into perspective, saving you time and money. You can contact her directly at http://www.businessherway.net or via email at gayley@mothergeek.com.

Tags: Social Media ROI, Social Media Strategy

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 12:00 AM by Wendy Troupe and is filed under Wendy Troupe's Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.