Call it a pound sign, a number sign, a hashmark, a fishnet or a hashtag - the # symbol can be a powerful little ally when tweeting. 

Every time you tweet a # followed by a word or severalwordswithoutspaces, you’ve just created a hashtag. Twitter transforms the hashtag in your tweet into a clickable search term. When anyone clicks the hashtag in your twitterstream, their page updates with all of the tweets containing that same word or phrase.

There are three major ways we use hashtags to amp up the effectiveness of our tweets on twitter:

1. Threading a Conversation
Your favorite conference has a hashtag allowing attendees (and wishing they were at the conference) to connect and share ideas. Search for hashtags #TED, #Blogher or #SXSW as successful examples. Organizations also use hashtags: #SMCChicago, #LA2M or #Tweetea. So do twitter chats (which are kind of like virtual conferences): #SMmanners, #journchat or #smallbizchat.

2. Adding a Keyword
Use hashtags to add keywords, topics and locations to your tweets. Examples include #marketing, #quote and #Detroit. Twitter has become a destination for people looking to find what’s now and what’s next. Adding a relevant keyword to your tweet will help your tweet, your idea and your business be found!

3. Adding Personality, Meaning or Sarcasm 
There’s no shortage of good ideas or goofiness on twitter. Your hashtag can be heartfelt (#missyou) or humorous (#thatswhatshesaid). People also use tags to agree (#Truth) or disagree (#FAIL). 

As always, the best way to learn twitter is to use twitter. Dive on in. The twittersteam is nice.


Need some help making sense of social media marketing? Talk to the good folks at Curve Detroit: http://www.curvedetroit.com

Invite Charlie to train your team on the finer points of using twitter for business: http://charliecurve.com