In this day and age, the use of the hashtag has become an essential part of the online conversation. At first the use of the hashtag was considered just another piece of metadata trash on the side of the super information highway. That was originally thought back in 2007. However, today it is a different story altogether. Since its humble beginnings as a mere idea to help the micro-bloggers of twitter connect together, hashtags have blossomed into the Holy Grail of online marketing. Once just a button on your phone keypad, the hashtag has now become the unofficial 28th letter of the English alphabet. The hashtag is a popular and powerful tool, and like all powerful objects they can do as much harm as good, depending on how it is used.
As hashtags have evolved over the last decade, their use has expanded and become more complex. Philosophies about proper usage has helped solidify hashtags as their usage grows. Of course, bad ideas abound as well. For example, too many characters will do nothing for your campaign as most people are lazy or forgetful to type more than 8 to 10 letters. Another bad idea is the overabundance of hashtags in some posts, and any more than 2 or 3 will scatter your message to the winds of digital obscurity. An effective hashtag campaign is short, simple, direct, and easy. Of course, it also has to match the format of the ever growing list of social media sites who use them, and so far there are few types of hashtags that have emerged. Brand hashtags like #shoecompany or #fakebeverage are used to push promotions and interact with customers. While content hashtags like #dog and #surfing are more generic and are often used as a kind of short-hand description for the content of the blog. However, while making up your own hashtag is easy, using pre-existing and trending hashtags are actually more effective!
All in all, in the end knowing how to use hashtags effectively can make all the difference in whether or not an online campaign goes viral, or just simply gets lost in the noise that is social media.
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