We’ve all heard that content is king and that everyone should just write good content and the traffic will come right? Well, except SEO, social marketing promotion should be your next big step into getting your blog or website noticed. If you own a blog, you are going to want to (or are probably already using) use Twitter because everyone wants their blog to get exposure and Twitter can help you greatly. But since every beginning is hard, let me explain what I think could be the quickest and most successful jump-start for your brand new Twitter account.
When I first started using Twitter a few months ago I was kinda disappointed being surrounded by people with hundreds and even thousands of followers. It seemed like a closed circle. If I wanted to get exposure I needed to tweet my message to a lot of people and if I wanted those people to follow me I needed to let them know I exist.
When I found out about Twitter hashtags and the proper way to use them, it was an entirely different story.
What are Twitter hashtags?
Twitter hashtags are strings of text after the # symbol that tag your tweet to a specific topic or just a random word you want. It might not be the easies thing to explain so I like to compare hashtags with TV channels.
Image Twitter to be a huge TV broadcasting network and you tweeting your tweet is actually like asking the network to publish your ads. You also get to pick on which channels your tweet is broadcasted on.
How to use hashtags
Take this Tweet for example:
Check out my new blog post about Monopoly – “Is Monopoly a Game Of The Past?” – http://bit.ly.addy #boardgames
Using the #boardgames tag in the tweet above will make your tweet visible not only to your followers but to everyone that is monitoring broadcasting on that “channel”. Every tag you put in your tweet will also become linkable and by clicking on it, you can watch that channel.
Maybe boardgames is to strict. Not many people are on Twitter to find out about boardgames. So why not add another hash tag so that your tweet appears on both channels.
Check out my new blog post about Monopoly – “Is Monopoly a Thing Of The Past?” – http://bit.ly.addy #boardgames #games
Now that we tagged our Tweet with 2 hashtags we have a much bigger chance for someone to pick it up on their twitter streams. The #games hash tag is going to give us much better results since it’s a much broader term.
Hashtag “Code Of Honour”
Like every feature across the Internet, hashtags can get abused, spammed and therefore ignored. It’s up to the vast Twitter community and its users to have some kind of “Code Of Honour” and to use the tags that are related to their tweet.
Another important thing to remember is to never overuse the tags so that your tweet gets to be secondary to your tags and the hashtags are the first thing someone sees when you tweet.
Remember to leave enough space in your Tweet for someone to re-tweet your message and if you are re-tweeting new tweets, re-tweet them without the hashtags because if that message has already been broadcasted on a channel you don’t want to repeat it again in the same minute or 10, maybe later though.
What I like to do is re-tweet peoples tweets and put my own little hashtags in them just to help others that don’t know how to use the tags or didn’t have time to think of a tag, get more exposure. Of course, I do this only for tweets and accounts that I think are worth my time and so should you.
It all comes down to …
finding the right hashtags. If you like the idea of using hashtags, you are going to want to do some research and find out which hashtags are the most monitored in which subject. Every letter in the hash tag can make a difference like when using #socialnetwork or #socialnetworking or #socialnetworks.
Those are basically the same thing but on Twitter, they are 3 different channels and maybe the first one has 5.000 people monitoring it and the second one has 2.000 people – but the third one has 150.000 people watching the steam.
A single letter in a hashtags can be the difference between getting 10 clicks and 2 re-tweets or getting 50 clicks and 10 re-tweets.
Saving space in your Tweets
A great way you can save space in your tweets so someone can re-tweet them and still use hashtags is using hash symbols in your sentence to transform certain words into hashtags.
Here is an example:
How to start #blogging without having any #copywriting skills – http://bit.ly.addy
Do not hash every word in your tweet, not only that it’s pointless but it looks really spammy as well.
Hash tag research
There are new hash tag directories poping out every few weeks – and they should I guess. It’s one of the “honest” ways to improve your chances of getting twitter followers without joining any paid bogus script programs that automatically follow people.
So far, I have been using the good ol’ Twitter search box. I just think of a hash tag that might be used and write it in the search box along with the # symbol. After a few minutes I can see how often there are new Tweets on that channel and see if it’s worth tagging my tweet with it.
Some hashtags are pretty basic and don’t require any research such as #marketing #blogging #twitter #charity . You can’t go wrong with using the basic form of the word and of course you can always just put all 3 or 4 variations of a word after the hash but remember the “Code Of Honour” we talked about above.
Four sites I suggest to get you started:
http://hashtags.org/ – The best tool I have found so far to get the most out of hashtags
http://search.twitter.com/ – Twitter search box, only bigger
http://tweetchat.com/ – Website that can help you monitor certain hashtags
http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/49309 – Twitter help explains what are hashtags and how to use them
Spread the word
If you know someone who has just started using Twitter or a friend who would like to, share this article and help spread the right way Twitter hashtags should be used. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to voice your opinion in the comments!
Alison Moore Smith (2)
Dennis Edell (2)
Karl Foxley (2)
Agent Deepak (1)
These are some very nice tips! I will try adding hashtags to my next tweets.
@FamousBloggers
says
Very good post, I actually started to use Twitter Hashtaging lately, and I think it’s a very good promotion! Thanks for sharing this good info!
Hesham´s last blog ..Do you need a new fresh Start with the new Lumin Theme from ElegantThemes?
@McKnightikus
says
Your welcome, thanks for stopping by guys! Did you get my email about the interview Hesham?
@sequencehosting
says
Hey Gordon, this is a fantastic article and very helpful! I never really knew how to use the hash tags properly but you have explained it very well. I’m going to re-tweet this now.
@techfreaks
says
Using HashTags basically increases our visibility in Twitter search. It shows others that we are also talking about a similar talking just getting various like-minded people together.
Tech-Freak Stuff´s last blog ..Remember that POLICE are keeping a watch on your Social Networking and Email profiles
@McKnightikus
says
Yes and quite often you can see a hash tag being on the “Trending Topics” list. That’s another way to find out which one is popular but it doesn’t mean you can tweet unrelated messages with that tag – or at least you shouldn’t
Oh man, you can count on me promoting this article once I get back on twitter; FINALLY I get it!
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Are You Thankful For Your Blogging Community?
@coopchad
says
Researching hashtags before you use them and saving room in your tweets for the potential retweet – good stuff.
@McKnightikus
says
@Dennis I’m glad you do!
Hashtags are a really powerful feature and you should use them to gain the advantage among those who don’t.
@Chad I base a lot of things on research. It’s what makes it additionally fun for me. Unfortunatley hashtags.org appears to be overloaded for a few days now. Hope they fix it soon because it’s a really good service and this post i kinda useless if you guys can not check out the website.
For sure Gordon, for sure. I tell ya, your plain English approach had certainly earned you the right to guest post for me if you’re interested….that’s what I look for.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Whoopsy Commentluv Is Busted! You Have Permission To Leave ONE Link.
@McKnightikus
says
That’s nice of you to offer. The best way to teach is always plain english.
I have a busy week next week so I will get back to you on that guest post offer. I’m also working on a few serial posts about starting a new website from zero, so stay tuned
No worries, its an open invite with no time limits…I’ll be busy moving blogs soon anyway.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Whoopsy Commentluv Is Busted! You Have Permission To Leave ONE Link.
@karlfoxley
says
A very cool post! I’ve started to see some of my tweets get picked up and listed on other sites away from Twitter when I use particular hastags, #clickbank, #ebay, etc.
Although I know a bit about hastags and their usage, it never hurts to learn that bit more!
Thanks for sharing,
Karl
Karl´s last blog ..Introduce Yourself and Get Some Link Love!
@AgentDeepak
says
I have not much experience with hashtags on twitter but I am now implementing them on some my tweets.
Thanks for simple tips.
Agent Deepak´s last blog ..Back to Basics: What is Blogging?
@McKnightikus
says
You’re welcome guys! If you see any results you would like to share feel free to comment again. I consider hashtags to be very important because they will help you build up your followers from zero to 100 and more. It’s easy to go from 1000 to 1500 but those first few hundred are nasty. That’s why you should use hashtags so people who are not following you can pick up your tweets and then follow you if they like them.
Gordon, I just found out about you while on Ms. Ileane’s blog and just wanted to say that I ran, not walked to my feeder and subscribed you, really good stuff here for the newbie blogger, thanks again for this post. I wrote about it on my Payson Web blog:
http://blog.paysonweb.com/post/323592405/confessions-of-a-rookie-twubber
@McKnightikus
says
Thank you for the kind words, I’m glad you stopped by and that you enjoy my blog. There will be more interesting articles, especially for newbies in the future. It has been a bit busy with my College right after holidays but I will be writing a new post in a few days. If you have any particular thing you are having trouble with either webdesign, blogging or social networks let me know and I’ll see if I can write about it. Also, thanks for the mention on your blog – I will by stopping by often as well.
Hi
You mention the following:
Those are basically the same thing but on Twitter, they are 3 different channels and maybe the first one has 5.000 people monitoring it and the second one has 2.000 people – but the third one has 150.000 people watching the steam.
What site do you recommend that can show me how many people are monitoring this hashtag vs that hashtag?
Thanks for your great article!
@McKnightikus
says
Hello! Yea, at the end of the post I wrote a few links you could try. The most powerful in my opinion is hashtags.org
They now have a graph that shows you how much activity each tag is getting and that is a nice way to determine which one you should use. When I started using Twitter and hashtags, I didn’t know about the services so I just tweeted with my own hashtag ideas and monitored how many clicks I get on which. Thanks for stopping by!