| How to Use Hashtags With Twitter Nov 15th 2012, 14:00 Hashtags are a very useful tool for tracking topics that interest you on Twitter. Hashtags help to organize tweets about similar topics. You, too, can create your own hashtags in your tweets that others can add to. These steps will teach you how to use and make Twitter hashtags, one of the most important skills for utilizing and navigating the growing social network. - Understand hashtags. The universe of Twitter is vast and can be difficult to navigate. Hashtags are one of the most important and efficient ways of organizing information on Twitter. Anyone can make a hashtag at any time, simply by typing a phrase of the form "#topic" in a tweet. After a hashtag has been created, other Twitter users can use that hashtag in their own tweets to add to the larger conversation about that topic. Hashtags can be as general (#wikiHow) or as specific (#howToUseHashtagsOnTwitter) as desired. They are a completely organic form of organization, created and managed by Twitter users, not Twitter itself.
- Navigate Twitter with hashtags. Clicking on a hashtag will send you to the page for that hashtag, where you will see other tweets that contain that hashtag. Near the top of the page, you can select "Top", which shows tweets containing the hashtag that have been retweeted numerous times, or "All", which shows all tweets that include the hashtag. On the hashtag page, tweets are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first). There are a number of ways to go to the page for a given hashtag.
- Within tweets, hashtags appear in blue type, opposed to the black type for the rest of the tweet. Clicking on a hashtag within a tweet will send you to the page for that hashtag.
- In the "Trends" sidebar, you can view the hashtags that are currently the most popular throughout Twitter. Clicking on one of these will take you to the page for that hashtag.
- If you are looking for a specific hashtag, you can look it up in the "Search" bar at the top of the Twitter page. Type in the hashtag you want, including the "#", and press "Enter". A full list of tweets with that hashtag will come up on your screen. If the hashtag has never been used, you will see a message that says, "No Tweet results for #topic."
- Find hashtags that interest you. As Twitter continues to grow, so does the number of hashtags. There are many ways to find hashtags related to subjects that you are interested in.
- Read through the Twitter feeds of people you follow. Check out the hashtags to see if you are interested in reading other tweets with those hashtags.
- Look for hashtags in everyday life. Many advertisements now include Twitter hashtags that allow you to easily keep track of the conversation about new products. Similarly, live events like awards shows or sporting events include hashtags so that watchers can easily participate in live discussion. Your tweet may even appear on the air.
- Look online. You can do an Internet search for "cool Twitter hashtags" or "interesting Twitter hashtags about…" There are many sites that aggregate and share hashtags, making it easier to for you to find hashtags for subjects that interest you.
- Include an existing hashtag in your tweet. You can do this simply by typing a phrase of the form "#topic" within your tweet. After you click "Tweet," your tweet will appear in your list of tweets with the hashtag in blue type. Scroll over the hashtag and click on it to go to the page for that hashtag. Your tweet will now appear when other users visit the hashtag page.
- If you wish to use an existing hashtag, make sure that your spelling is correct and that there are no spaces between the words you wish to include in the hashtag. Capitalization, however, does not matter. Thus "#wikihow", "#wikiHow", and "#WikiHow" will all produce the same result.
- Create your own hashtag. The form for doing this is exactly the same as for including an already existing hashtag. Simply type a phrase of the form "#topic." Do not put any spaces in the phrase that you want to turn into a hashtag, because the hashtag begins with the "#" and ends with the first space. When you click "Tweet", your new tweet will appear in your list of tweets, and the hashtag you created will appear in blue. Scroll over it and click on it to be redirected to the page for the hashtag. If you have really created a brand new hashtag, your tweet should be the only one on the page. Now, every time someone includes your hashtag in a tweet, it will be added to the page.
- When using hashtags, try to observe hashtag etiquette. Do not overuse hashtags, because this can dilute their usefulness for other users. Understand the purposes of different hashtags. Some are obviously meant to be silly, while others are more serious. Make sure you observe these differences if you do not want to draw the anger of other Twitter users.
Edit Warnings - Don't Tweet and Drive.
- Don't use hashtags on every word you type in, when you type your Tweet into the box.
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