The best use of hashtags

Hashtags show up all over the place in social media; sometimes used well, sometimes not so much. Here are some quick thoughts on them.

They started for groups

Chris Messina first proposed using a hashtag back in 2007. They weren’t linked to each other, but the idea was that users of his group could search for the hashtag to find one another. The idea spread quickly, as did functionality in tools like Twitter to automatically link hashtags to pages with grouped ideas.

They’re not really for search

You’re not going to randomly appear higher in any social channel because of hashtags. While people will click them to see related posts, most social media searches are hashtag-less. If I want more info about WordPress, I might just search for “WordPress” on Twitter. This will show me all of the tweets that use that word, whether it is in the middle of a sentence or a hashtag.

They’re good for organizations and conversations

The key to hashtags is that you can click on them to see other posts that used the same hashtag. This is a great way to find people talking about things you’re interested in, and it’s easy to join in with them. This is really the best use of hashtags — if I include a #DesignTips hashtag, users might click it to see other posts with that hashtag. Better yet, they might be on another post initially and then find you as a result!