Ultimate Guide to Twitter Hashtags. What is a Twitter hashtag?
A hashtag is a way to unite global Tweets around some particular topic. Basically, these are tags that that help those who seek similar content discover your Tweets. According to the official source: Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. Hashtags are getting more and more popular (despite the fact some people are against them wishing their Twitter stream to be metadata-free and “as human a form of communication as possible”).
Add more Twitter Followers using twitter location search Anyway, I do use hashtags and find them fun, so I am sharing a few tips and resources below. Where can I find what hashtags people are using? #hashtags.org is the first place to find most recent and hot hashtags. Twemes.com is another useful resource for discovering new hashtags and tracking those you are interested in. How are hashtags used? Do you use hashtags? How to choose the Twitter client that’s right for you. More than a third of all tweets are sent by people visiting Twitter’s default Web client.
Which is too bad, because Twitter, as a website, is by far the least effective way to use Twitter as a network. But even though just about any third-party client will provide you with a better way to use Twitter, picking the client that’s right for you can be daunting. Should you install a client or use one that runs in your browser? Which features are really necessary? Should you pay for any of these services? I typically prefer browser-based clients because I think its easier to move between browser windows than separate programs, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at an installed client with a really great feature set just for that. As far as paying for these services, I say hold onto your money for now. Clients are constantly updating their features, so today’s hot clients could easily be replaced by competitors. To get you started, here’s a rundown of some of the more poplar clients out there. Poynter. Zombie Journalism TBD’s Mandy Jenkins has developed a newsroom checklist to keep social media mistakes to a minimum.
Jenkins acknowledges that errors happen in every newsroom, but suggests that asking key questions before posting information on Twitter or Facebook can help journalists take the medium more seriously. She focuses on 20 questions to ask before hitting “send.” While the list has a lot of common-sense questions, it’s nevertheless worth checking out and posting next to your computer. It’s helpful to consider how core journalism values can be applied to something as seemingly simple as re-tweeting. On that topic, Jenkins writes: “Is it clear why I want to share this tweet, or does it need context?
Poynter.org had a chat about how to handle errors in tweets last week and plans to hold another one with Adrian Holovaty, who is interested in collaborating on a technological tool to correct tweets.