The Future of Twitter
Hashtags are what used to make Twitter special. Today, Instagram works through hashtag, Facebook has hashtags, even Google Plus has hashtags, and technically speaking Pinterest has hashtags too. So, now that everyone uses hashtags Twitter isn’t so special. Regardless, it is more normal to use hashtags on Twitter and Instagram than any other platform.
So what are the best ways to use hashtags? I already spoke about this a little in an earlier tip, but we will discuss it in more detail now.
We discussed a tool called Twubs, which allows you to find twitter chats in your niche and jump in to comment on them. This is one great example of using a hashtag. Getting a specific type of person to use your hashtag allows you to easily sort out a specific type of person you want to target.
This can be done on a large scale, like by having a chat on weekly basis, and having others use the hashtag to stay in the chat, or you can use it on the small scale by telling your followers to use a hashtag that no one else is using to easily find them. For example, if you have an email list, and you want to find out if your subscribers have a Twitter you can either pay Twitter to advertise to them, or you can tell the people to use a random hashtag like #GodBlessTheTortoise and track to see how many people use it, what context they used it in, and if they need a reply. It is a very easy way to find out how large your audience is on Twitter. Cyber Dust actually uses this approach. If you ever share your CD profile on Twitter the standard message tags @Cyberdust and has the hashtag #DustMe. (PRO-TIP: If you are looking for new people to follow on CD, go to twitter and type in #DustMe in search, you will get a list of tons of people to friend.)
Many companies try to jump onto the trending hashtags, by talking about what everyone else is talking about. The problem is that the giant hashtags are so over-saturated that it is highly unlikely that you will be heard in the crowd. Just like PPC experts tell you to try to target long tail keywords (keywords searched less often, but by a more targeted group) so to you should use hashtags that are “long tail,” or less used. I assume if I used the hashtag #facebook, #socialmedia, or #emailmarketing I will never be heard, but using #carouselads (A type of ad on Facebook), and other hashtags of that type, will probably do much better for me for exposure.
Of course there is one more use for hashtags, humor. Outlandish, random, and crazy hashtags that will obviously not go viral but are worth throwing in every so often just for the sake of humor. People love a good laugh (so much so that in Twitter analytics 69% of all of Twitter like comedy), so tell them a good joke and they will want to hear more.
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