My title for today’s blog post is a little redundant for a reason but rest assured that there are a few fun facts and tidbits of information here.
So many people still do not understand how exactly to use the hashtag so I decided to give a quick lesson for those who may need one. On this #WisdomWednesday, I am going to make this particular blog post a lesson in this crazy craze known as the hashtag. First though, I would like to credit Dan Nedelko who wrote a lovely little article about the hashtag that I really enjoyed and the reason for my enjoyment was because I too learned a little something about that pesky little # but I digress.
Use of the hashtag is pretty straightforward once you get the hang of its actual purpose. . There are three hashtag rules that people need to understand and follow if they are going to reap all the benefits that hashtags may provide. The first rule to follow for a successful hashtag is that there are no spaces in a hashtag regardless of how long your tag may be. For example, if you want to hashtag monkey business, the proper way is #monkeybusiness not #monkey business. Although this may seem ridiculously simplistic, many people still make this mistake and when you post your hashtag improperly, it then loses its intended meaning and those who happen upon the portion that is tagged will not have any idea what you are talking about and by extension, you could lose a potential audience member because they may assume you don’t understand what you are doing. So, whether you are using a hashtag with two words or with twenty words, DO NOT use any spaces.
The second hashtag rule is that you should NOT hashtag a brand, you should reference it instead. Most brands have their own “handle” so you should use their handle rather than a hashtag. For instance, if you are posting about Joel Osteen who is a famous preacher, you wouldn’t do #joelosteen instead, you would do @joelosteen and add it along with your other typical hashtags for whatever you are posting. One of the main reasons for using a brands handle is because THEY are more likely to see your post and it is more likely that they will interact with you. If you choose to still hashtag the brand, you can but your engagement may be very limited which is defeating your whole point of hashtagging. By the way, I’m not sure if hashtagging is an actual word but I need to use it to bring my point home so for this blog post let’s just say that I am the inventor of said word, #hashtagging Lol.
Finally, The third rule or should I say that this is more of a misunderstanding that comes in two parts. The misunderstanding is whether or not to use capital letters in a hashtag. Part one of this answer is that if you have a single word, there is no need for any capitalization. You can capitalize if you choose to, but there is no real need for it. However, part two of this answer is that if you have a longer hashtag, capitalizing the first letter of each word will make it extremely easy to read and therefore make your posting more efficient. Two examples of proper and or efficient hashtags would be #animals and #AnimalsAtTheFarm. The easier the ability to read your hashtag, the greater opportunity that people will repost it properly. No need to worry about searches because whether you include capitals or not, a search does not differentiate and will only look at each letter for what it is.
The last thing I want to say about hashtagging is to please make sure you test your hashtag especially if they are long. I learned this reading the article that Dan Nedelko wrote and it was an eye opener. He talked about a “fatal” flaw that occurred in the Twitter universe when Margaret Thatcher had passed away. The trending hashtag was #NowThatcherHasDied but it was posted in all lower case, like this #nowthatcherhasdied so, masses of people read it as, “now that Cher has died”. Up to and including today, that hashtag lives in error infamy. So the two points to take away here are the following, if you have a long hashtag, make the first letter of each word a capital one so that people will read it correctly. The second takeaway is that if you do indeed have a long hashtag, test it to make sure that it cannot be read in different ways like the example above. I can almost guarantee you that if your hashtag can be read more than one way, it will, so make sure you test it.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it. There is a very interesting and entertaining book called, wait for it, Hashtag. That’s right, it’s called Hashtag. Next time you are in your local library, please check this book out. It is so interesting and fun to read. If your library doesn’t have it, here is a link to the book which is available on Amazon >> https://amzn.to/331BHaq
If you choose to shop in Amazon, I would greatly appreciate it if you could use the link I have provided. As an Amazon Affiliate, it is possible I can earn a bonus and therefore continue to provide continued content we all enjoy. Thank you in advance!
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