One of the more complicated and confusing aspects of twitter is the hashtag “#” symbol. We want to ease your worries about the use of the hashtag and explain how to use them and what purpose they serve. Popular hashtags often become trending topics so if you make one clever enough you could have your own trending topic. Using a popular hashtag is also a great way to get noticed by top twitter users.

The Definition according to Twitter: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.

Hashtags always start with the “#” symbol, followed by a message with no spaces.

So for example if it was Webhead’s birthday and we wanted to make sure we could see all the birthday wishes without the need to mention us in the tweet, we would use the hashtag #happybirthdaywebhead.

Then we could just search “#happybirthdaywebhead” and see everything anyone said about us as long as they used that hashtag.

You can use hashtags in any part of a tweet and they will work the same way. However it is best to not use more than two hashtags per post as it seems “spammy”.

One fun way we use hashtags at Webhead Interactive is to make a pop culture reference to the post with the hashtag. For instance, here is a tweet from @ISO_Group:

This post is about military aircrafts which would include jets. By using the hashtag #DangerZone they were referencing the movie Top Gun. Another good hashtag to use there could be #Goooooose or #Iceman. It makes tweets have more of a “retweet” quality if they have a comedic value or a reminder of something readers enjoy.

You could also just say something in a hashtag that others would want to contribute to. A popular hashtag is #humblebrag in which you would brag about an aspect of your life. By adding the #humblebrag hashtag you are also letting readers know you are self-promoting but telling readers you know your post is a bit pompous. Here is an example:

We hope that this has helped you in any Twitter woes you may have. We look forward to seeing your hashtags as trending topics soon!