Twitter 101: What Are Hashtags, and Why Do I Care?

If a person knows nothing about hashtags or metadata, then all hashtags are useless and only cause tweeting confusion.

For many reading this, that last sentence probably felt like reading something in another language. The Twittersphere (the realm of all twitterers who microblog on Twitter.com) is full of confusing and difficult terms. Among those terms is one of the most confusing: the hashtag.

As Twitter has grown over the past three years, its users have hijacked the direction of the microblogging site and taken it in entirely new directions. Twitter users have delved into the unknown, and now many are struggling to keep up with the changes.

With all of these changes, a number of terms and Twitter shortcuts have developed. Many of these have become staples of the twitterer's arsenal. Hashtags are among the most influential innovations that Twitter users have developed in its short life.

However, none of these innovations are useful if people don't understand what they are or how they work. The same is true of hashtags, and what was stated before becomes true: if a person knows nothing about hashtags, then all hashtags are ultimately useless and confusing.

What is a hashtag?
If you are a beginning Twitter user, or someone who has observed the microblogging revolution from afar, you may have seen words in people's tweets, the 140-character updates that people send in to Twitter, that begin with the pound-sign (#). A hashtag looks somewhat like this:

#followfriday
#iranelection
#140mafia

Hashtags are a way of using metadata in Twitter tweets (don't panic, it will be explained). Metadata are key words that help people find what they are looking for on the web. When a website appears on the Internet, those who have created the website insert metadata, keywords, in a specific format to tell search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing what the website is about. Then, when people search for those specific terms in an Internet search engine, the creator's website is more likely to be near the top of the search.

The hashtag does the same thing for the Twittersphere. When a person includes a hashtag like #iranelection in their tweet, what they are telling the site is that their post is relevant to everyone who is searching for information on the Iran election.

Then, when a person searches for information on the Iran election in certain areas (like Twitter and hashtags.org), the posts that included the #iranelection hashtag will be included in the search results.

I don't use these sites, so why should I care about hashtags?
You may not use Twitter, but those you get information from on the Internet likely do. Hashtags help your sources of information catalogue and decipher Twitter information. Also, the new Microsoft Bing search engine indexes information from Twitter in searches as well, and will be expanding their use of Twitter very soon. When this happens, hashtags will become even more useful to search engines and Twitter users.

For more on Twitter, Facebook, hashtags, and microblogging, feel free to visit this MicroSea News Blog.