Back when I was a kid, and I’m not that old, hashtags were the number sign on a rotary phone. Those were the days when we played tic-tac-toe, too—on Paper. Nowadays the # sign has been taken hostage by the hashtag. Everywhere you go on the Web you see #this and #that. But what does this all mean for content writing services? Well, if you are hashtag savvy, you understand that this symbol does far more than organize the Twitter-verse.
What Does That Mean?!
How many of you out there have come across some hashtags that leave you in the lurch about their meaning? Show of hands? Well, now you can take your hashtag skills to the next level with #tagdef. #Tagdef, meaning hashtag definitions, includes the most popular at-the-moment hashtags, such as:
- #oomf
- #wcw
- #tbt
- #pensive
- #subtweet
- (and #justinbieber, but we’ll just all pretend that didn’t just happen)
Better yet, you can find out what these ever elusive hashtags mean!
- #oomf = one of my followers
- #wcw = women crush Wednesday
- #tbt = throwback Thursday
- #pensive = involving serious thought
- #subtweet = “It’s some sly little way for people to spite each other on Twitter instead of dealing with their issues like adults in real life.” –@technobadguy
Tagboard
Now that you have an idea of what hashtags mean and how to define them, how do you use them? For research, silly! At Tagboard you get to take everything hashed to death on each social media site and aggregate it. Say for instance you are doing research on exercises to stimulate your creativity. Rather than doing an old fashioned Google search, head on over to Tagboard. Search for your keyword or phrase, i.e. #creativity, and voila! You will have every single thing that has been hashtagged #creativity. This site pulls hashtags from all social media sites including Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Kickstarter, Facebook, and Google+. Better yet, you find the latest hashing action in as close to real time as you can get. For those in the content biz, this means you can get the latest and most popular news about the topics you are researching—#happyface!
Twubs
OK so now that you are a #pro, it’s time to take hashtagging to the next level. Twubs can get you there. This site includes a list of hashtags that have been categorized by topics including live events, trade shows, conferences and topics. So, if you are doing a marketing campaign on the use of mind exercises for boosting creativity, search for topics, such as #creativethinking, #braingames or #mentalexercise, to find out what people are saying about these topics. You can also register a hashtag. No, this isn’t the same as copyrighting or trademarking it, but you can brand a hashtag to be used for establishing a landing page that is used for hosting chats on Twitter. The opportunities for hashing are endless for content writers who want to get the latest scoop and most applicable resources for their next projects or assignments.
So get out there and get #hashy.
Miranda B writes wherever she goes and about whatever she does, which makes for some highly entertaining and often surprising content.
