I’m sure you’ve seen them all over social media and television shows lately and continue to ask yourself, “Why are they telling me to hashtag this? What does that even mean?” So what is a hashtag exactly?
A hashtag (#) is a way to group topics. Simple as that.
According to Wikipedia: A hashtag is “a word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the hash symbol (#). It is a form of a meta tag.”
If you are computer nerdy (like me), you should know that these meta tags are fabulous ways to keep track of trends. Just to give you an idea: Twitter and Instagram are better known for using hashtags over Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. You will see more hashtags on Twitter & Instagram because more tech-savvy and social media mavens use hashtags there rather than on Facebook or Pinterest. And certainly more than Google+. However, admittedly – much to my dismay, those sites started picking up on the hashtag bandwagon.
Hashtags made an appearance on Twitter sometime in 2009, but have more recently been taken on by media outlets all over the world. I even noticed on Super Bowl Sunday many commercials were using hashtags to promote themselves. The very popular Esurance commercials generated the craziest statistics in a hashtag that I’ve ever seen. They told around 100 million Super Bowl fans to tweet “ESuranceSave30” for the chance to win 1.5 million dollars. Here’s what they got: “Within a minute, more than 200,000 people had Tweeted for a shot at the prize and by the time the sweeps ended (a mere, but frenzied 36 hours), we’d received more than 5.4 million Tweets total.”
Check out the article here: http://blog.esurance.com/this-guy-won-1-5-million-with-a-tweet/?promoid=TWBR0-Win_Big-Blog-Winner-75#.UvP4b_aejPA
Ah, the power of a hashtag.
So here’s what it comes down to. If you want to look up cute pictures of puppies, hashtag #cutepuppies. If you want to find pictures of babies dressed as batman, search #babybatman. Scenery? #prettyscenery #sunsets #sunrise. Want to find out more information about your area? #westchester #westchesternews #nynews
Anything you want to search, just type it on in the search bar in Instagram or in Twitter. Heck, even try out Pinterest and Facebook since they decided to hop on. WHY do people hashtag these things? To get their picture or status seen, of course! Sometimes you’ll see silly hashtags that have absolutely nothing to do with the picture or post, but that’s just the person’s personality! The best of us do it. It’s just to get a giggle out of our viewers. Don’t take it personally.
Give it a try! You may end up enjoying hashtagging pictures or social media posts. But just a warning: Don’t over-do it! No one wants to read 30 hashtags on a post.
Let us know how you made out! Any questions? Just ask!