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How to Define a Hashtag!

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Twitter Hashtag used to fuel a Party!

Continuing my previous post on the use of Hashtags I will go a bit more into detail into figuring out what a Hashtag is used for and there meanings.
On many ocassions your are browsign thru Twitter and you identify a hashtag which you might not be familiar with. This happens to me on many ocassions. If it comes from a source I trust I normally either ask them to explain wha t hte hashtag is used for or I try to find out for myself. There are various sites which might help you identify the hashtags meaning and provide you more detailed information on the Hashtag.
I have identified the 4 that I know of (if you have identified other Tools or sites which do a better job than the ones I have included feel more than free to include them in the comments area.
This Post is also available in Spanish

What the Trend – Very complete it has the following areas:

  • Leaderboard
  • Definition of Terms
  • Adding a Trend
  • Week in Review
  • Trends segmented by Countries.

Twubs – Very appealing interface. In the front page you can find popular terms, conference hashtags, featured, and various categories.  Other features throughout the site include:

  • Search of hashtags and terms
  • Definition of terms.
  • Adding a Term or Trend
  • You can also send a tweet, shorten url, and also include video.

Hashtags.org – Very simple includes search box which will give you a the term, a list, and a trends graph.

Tagalus – Very simple.

  • Get and set definitions
  • Includes a dictionary
  • Identifies tags in Twitter, Youtube, & Flickr

What hashtags have you found interesting today or this week?

How often do you use hashtags and what for?

Feel free to share your thoughts?

3 Ways To Make Your Keywords Useful On Twitter

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Hashtag Art

The Hashtag is one of the most useful Tools Twitter has given many of us. It is also where many new twitter users have many questions the hashtags use and purpose.

For those of you who are not familiar with the hashtag term on twitter it is a word or united phrase that starts with the # Symbol.

During the next few blog posts I will try to cover #hashtags from my perspective.

I am going to start by sharing the 3 main uses of the hashtag! If I missed a main use of hashtags or any other feel free to add them in the comments area.

Organizing

It is easier to find a topic in a search when the # symbol is attached. Attaching it also increases the probability of having it appear on Twitter Trends. The Hashtag also creates a link to Twitter Search. In general it can allow you to group people talking on a subject via Twiter. A good example is when conducting a chat with various people a chat where I try to join when I have the time is the #hprchat & #Latism chats. You meet great people and they talk about many subjects.

Spreading Information

If you need share information of current or future events like conferences, emergencies, seminars, or a sale a hashtag should help you in creating interest about the same subject. During the Chile Earthquake I was able to convey information from Puerto Rico to various regions of Chile. We made such great progress our blog on Twitter use @twitpuerto was featured by @foxnews as a reliable source.

In the following posts I will go into more detail on how to use hashtags for Business events. I also think that @chrismessina credited with starting hashtags wrote an awesome guide on how to use Twitter hashtags for emergency coordination and disaster relief.

Nagios based Monitoring wall in the NOC

Monitoring

I use hashtags the most for monitoring and keeping up to date on some of the efforts I collaborate in. One of the most use hashtags is the #Followfriday ( I mainly track this hashtag on Fridays since I am part of the Followfriday.com Moderators). It can be a useful hashtag if used right.

I also stay up to date with the hashtag #Latism since it has provided me with great information and a huge community of contacts outside of Puerto Rico with similar interests to mine.

One of the most interesting and fun hashtags I discovered (thanks to my Twitter Friend @karimacatherine) and have used frequently is #USGUYS . If you use #USGUYS at any moment a few individuals like me will probably answer back and little by little people continue to join into the conversation. As a matter of fact use the #USGUYS right now and probability is someone will answer back.

I will cover how I use hashtags for business and personal reasons (which in my case are the same) in the next following posts.

Speak up Share your thoughts in the comments area and thank you for taking the time to read this post!

Did I miss a general use of Hashtags? Feel free to add them along in the comments are?

If you wish to  read or share this article in Spanish we invite you  to visit Twitpuerto:

Keeping Followers Interested With #FollowFriday

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FollowFriday.com6 recommendations to Unleash the Power Of FollowFriday

If you are just starting on twitter who should you start following? I think everyone new on twitter runs into the same situation. How about if you are a business how do you gain followers?

In my opinion I see the benefit of growing your followers organically. I have seen many companies with new presence on twitter spamming and following as many people on twitter as they can get a hand on. Personally I think they should really focus on earning followers (without spamming), establishing relationships, and keeping those followers.

On twitter I have been a huge advocate for #FollowFriday and the Spanish version of #VivaViernes. The #FollowFriday hashtag was initially created and suggested by @micah on twitter. As you can see the first #FollowFriday Tweet below.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/micah/status/1124262248″]

For individuals it is a great way to share top people to follow on Twitter. It also gives you the chance to find recommendations from friends who they think deserve your attention. If you actually take those benefits and transfer them to a business account I see many advantages.

Getting back to actually maintaining your users by using #FollowFriday we recommend:

  1. Give a short description of your opinion on a user or what they tweet about. If you also see they are aligned towards efforts that your followers or yourself are an advocate for make sure to mention them.
  2. Opt Out if you are not going to give it your genuine touch. I see many people just creating lists of people but if you really want your followers to feel that you are mentioning them because they mean something to you then you should at least accompany the #FollowFriday with a short description of why you think they should be followed.
  3. Categorize your #FollowFriday. If you want to recommend a list of users who have something in common. Example if you follow a group of Web Designers then you can mention the category small phrase and the users recommended.
  4. Recommend People with High Impact Tweets. If you consider that a certain user is impacting you and might have a high impact with other users this is a user you might want to recommend.
  5. Take care of users who share Helpful Tweets. If you find that you ask a question and one of your users is actually replying with help or assisting other users in your list what better way to be grateful than with a recognition accompanied by a #FollowFriday.
  6. Most Interactive users with your account should be mentioned. I personally created a list of the Top 40 people who I interact with and usually I use that list as a guideline to send out my #FollowFridays

Overall search for the best option of the #FollowFriday to fit your business needs. I constantly switch them up and would recommend you to try or even mix my recommendations.

I also recommend you to visit Followfriday.com (@followfridaycom) which is a great new tool to measure how many #FollowFridays a user has received.

It also gives you a few tools to help you be grateful for the people who mentioned you with the #FollowFriday hashtag.

Are you using #FollowFriday for any business purpose?

How do you use your #FollowFriday?

Any other suggestions on how to keep your users interested?

Other External Related Posts

Hassle Free Embedding of Tweets in Your Blog or Website

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Twitter MediaPrototype with Many Advantages for your Blog or Website

Every time I create a blog post for the Blogs I participate in (Twitpuerto.com & Noveltica.com) it involves a tedious process of creating an image of the tweet, uploading the image, and then creating a link towards that tweet so others can reference it.

Yesterday while browsing on the web I found this new twitter tool called Blackbird Pie. This tool allows bloggers or website administrators to embed a tweet into their blog posts or articles.

The advantage is that the tweet keeps most of its functionality since the reader will be able to view the user’s profile, picture, click on links within the tweet, and even view hashtags.

Blackbird Pie was developed by Twitter employee Robin Sloan @robinsloan and is available on the company’s media site.

In order to embed tweets into their sites or blogs:

1. Users need to input a tweet’s link into Blackbird Pie.

2. The service creates a line of code that can be embedded into a site.

Twitter was very clear that Blackbird Pie is not a new feature and it’s still a prototype with some usability issues.

I had one usability issue when bringing the code to my twitpuerto.com site since it displayed some unwanted text.

Removing the part of the code that was not working was a lot easier than doing the full manual process.

Although Blackbird Pie is being modified improved I think it is a huge improvement from going through the previous manual process I explained.

UPDATE: There is also a Blackbird WordPress Plugin for those of you who run your blogs in WordPress.

Example of how a Tweet Will Look:

 

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/twittermedia/status/13376445689″]

Other External Posts and Articles:

Can you name any other advantages or improvements to this tool?