Twitter is an amazing resource for both marketing and finding information. When I first started on Twitter I made a lot of mistakes, but now I’m starting to really understand the power of Twitter and how to effectively use it.
One powerful tool on Twitter that I’m still experimenting with is #hashtags. Using hashtags wisely can easily yield your tweet hundreds if not thousands of extra views, and possibly make your tweet go viral (the goal of every tweeting marketer).
All this leads me to one huge question: Why isn’t there more hype about THO yet? That’s right, Twitter Hashtag Optimization!
THO – Twitter Hashtag Optimization
The whole web marketing community is hyped up about SEO. SEO has the ability to give your site long term exposure on Search Engines that Twitter Hashtag Optimization could never hope to offer, and it reaches a much wider user base.
The problem with SEO is new small sites can not compete with the big boys. SEO also takes time to implement. It could be weeks or months before SEO starts to pay off.
Twitter searches put everyone on an even playing field. Twitter Hashtag Optimization can instantly generate traffic for any site, anytime, under any conditions. That is the famous #PowerOfTwitter.
Mashable wrote an awesome article about how to get the most out of hashtags, but they didn’t go into detail about how marketers could use hashtags effectively.
Use THO When You Tweet
It seems obvious, but simply adding one or two (at the most) hashtags to your tweets could greatly increase their exposure. It’s easy to just hit the retweet button and not bother to use hashtags.
If you already spend any time at all researching keywords and long-tail search terms, you should consider researching popular twitter hashtags and using them wisely. That extra 2 seconds it takes to add hashtags could cost your dozens of retweets and thousands of visitors.
Do you use Twitter Hashtags? What success have you had with them?
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Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:25 AM
Let’s start some memes. People are always advocating chasing keywords. Screw that. Let’s invent keywords. Somebody has to do it.
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:12 AM
I’m all for inventing keywords. I guess the trick is making them take off.
#USIS is a new tag worth checking out. You stumble I stumble. I like the idea.
Tekshek Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:04 AM
thanks for sharing. i think people are advocating new chasing keywords
Jim Estill Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:26 AM
Hashtags are great but make sure the tweet is on topic. And in the end, it is more about good content than anything.
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:40 AM
I totally agree about being on topic. If you are off topic or you mislead your followers, you will lose their trust and ultimately, they will unfollow you.
Obviously, good content is important, but I don’t agree that it is more about good content than anything.
Twitter audiences are fickle. If your tweets are boring, no one will ever click the links to see if they are worth reading.
Also, if no one ever sees your tweets due to lack of followers, no hashtags or keyword, or not getting ReTweets, then your tweets did you no good.
Tamahome Jenkins Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:51 AM
In my opinion, hashtags are crucial to growing your follower base on Twitter. It helps to continually use the same hashtags so that you build up a reputation for them. For example, the twitter account for my history site uses #onthisday, #quote, #history, and #twitterstorians. In this way, my followers know that I’m not just trying to exploit some random hashtag, and people who search that hashtag see my account show up more than once. It pays off, too because I quoted Ted Kennedy on the day he died, using the #quote hashtag, and got RT’d 30 times, and gained 25 followers that day.
Also, you can invent hashtags on Twitter, but to guarantee widespread usage, you should form a coalition of users that will also use that hashtag.
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:56 AM
I think you’ve nailed it on the head. When people get used to seeing your account with the same hashtags, #blogs, #wordpress, #design, #marketing, #USIS, etc.. they know what they are getting.
You’ll either build a bad reputation for misuse or a great rep and following for delivering on your promised content. (Which also makes hashtags awesome for branding)
jan_geronimo Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Wow, that’s pretty helpful, Steven. Now, I’m excited about hash tags.
Tamahome Jenkins Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Glad I could help!
Harsh Agrawal Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:01 PM
Nice one Blake , Hashtag makes your tweet reachable to mass and more over Hash tags bots will retweet. But again in single tweet using lots of hashtags should be avoided…
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 4:03 PM
Yeah, I think more than 1 or 2 tags makes them ineffective. What is your experience with that?
Tamahome Jenkins Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 6:03 PM
It depends on how related the hashtags are. In the history community #tdih and #onthisday mean the same thing, but not everyone knows what tdih means (this day in history) so people will use both plus another hashtag their other hashtags. But again, they’ve gotta be related, otherwise you look like a spam artist.
Harsh Agrawal Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 9:34 PM
using too many hashtags is bad for readers too. And if you want to make most out of hashtags spam bots, I have seen one Hashtags work most effective.. :)
Dan Rockwell Says:
November 5th, 2009 at 9:32 AM
#hashtags are hugely good for everyone on twitter their more specific, more directive to basically say “this is important” as such at BKL we just launched HashParty a twitter hashtag explorer that reveals the who behind the tweets. Social Graph peeps, its what’s next..
Young Says:
November 5th, 2009 at 7:43 PM
Although I have hashtag for quite a while, it’s my first time to hear THO, with which I will learn how to do, thank you for sharing.
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 7:50 PM
I made up THO. I was hoping it would catch on, but I’m going to need a little more support :)
Young Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 8:04 PM
I think to catch up with the twitter trends of hashtag may be helpful, just as what we do for keywords.
jan_geronimo Says:
November 7th, 2009 at 12:45 PM
This deserves a follow up post. Do you have a comparative analysis of tweet using hashtags and just plain tweets without them? An experiment? That will be very interesting and is bound to convince lots of users to use them. I’m trying this out myself regardless. :)
Blake Waddill Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:53 PM
I’m running some tests now. It is kind of hard to tell completely at this point because the time of day the tweets go out and the quality of the title kind of makes it though.
There are a lot of variables, but I’m still trying to figure out how much of a difference it makes. I think certain tags have a lot more power than others.
John Samuel Says:
November 9th, 2009 at 8:12 AM
The best way is to have a unique hashtag for your blog or business and spread the word through Twitter. Now track the hashtags through search
Penny Stocks Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 5:12 AM
after reading the conversation in your comments i am now getting perfect into wat is hash tags and how to make proper use of these Hash tags
DS R4 Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 4:23 AM
Twitter is such a great and wild platform for advertisement and marketing for any product.
7 Steps Building A Following And Following The Right People On Twitter || Props Blog dot Com Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:17 PM
[...] possible to do all of these things without following a ton of people or having a ton of followers using searches and hashtags, following the right people and having the right followers make the process much [...]