If you use Twitter, you have probably noticed those # signs, and you might be wondering what they are. They’re known as Hashtags. These are a user-generated device that organize tweets by a topic, theme, keyword, brand name and more. You can add a Hashtag to your tweet by affixing a word to the symbol:

This tweet includes two Hashtags that pertain to the topic of the tweet; “emailtip” and “SmB”, which is a Hashtag commonly used for “Small Business.” You can also use Hashtags for brand names, people’s names or topics of conversation. For example #Twitter or #Election2010.

The reason using Hashtags is important is that by adding them to your tweets, it includes your tweets into a larger conversation so they can seen by everyone who follows that Hashtag. For instance, when VR4SmallBiz adds the Hashtag #emailtip to a tweet, all the people searching for Hashtag ’emailtip’ on Twitter or TweetDeck will see our tweet and then hopefully follow us!

I searched for #emailtip using the search bar on Twitter and saw these results. As you can see, there are many tweets that are relevant and pertain to my search for email tips! Plus, you can see that “#emailmarketing” is also a useful Hashtag.

Once you start using Hashtags in your tweets, you can use a service like Hashtags.org to see which Hashtags are getting the most mentions on Twitter and by whom. When you see people tweeting with a Hashtag you are interested in, follow them and they will typically follow you back.

When you get the hang of using Hashtags, it becomes second nature. Remember to use them only when relevant and usually three Hashtags is the limit per tweet. You can use a Hashtag anywhere in your tweet, especially in front of a keyword. Keep in mind that you can create your own Hashtags, if one does not exist for a certain topic or theme you are tweeting about. We created the Hashtag #VRDailyTip for our SupportVR Twitter account. Every day, we tweet a VerticalResponse tip. It is useful for people who want to learn more about our email marketing tools and it is great for us because we can easily see who is tweeting and retweeting with that Hashtag.

For more information about Hashtags, visit Twitter’s help site here. And you can see Hashtags in action when you follow VR4SmallBiz on Twitter.

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