Maybe I should start at the beginning. What is a hashtag?
When used properly, education hashtags can help you take part in important conversations and make valuable connections whether you’re a teacher or part of the SLT. Some hashtags are genuinely helpful when you are trying to search for important things like #nationalpoetryday or #happyfriday, while some of them are #totallymadeupandobscure, either by accident or on purpose. A hashtag automatically becomes a clickable link when you tweet it. Anyone who sees the hashtag can click on it and be brought to a page featuring the feed of all the most recent tweets that contain that particular hashtag. Twitter users put hashtags in their tweets to categorise them in a way that makes it easy for other users to find and follow tweets about a specific topics or themes.Things to think about when using Hashtags.
When you tweet and want your message to be part of a larger conversation beyond your followers, by adding relevant hashtags to your message you’ll automatically reach anyone who is monitoring the same hashtag. Some best practices for educators wanting to up their hashtag game include:- If you are wondering if others are using a certain keyword for a hashtag, simply enter it into the Twitter search function with the # before it and see what it pulls up.
- Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message will show you all other Tweets using that keyword.
- Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet – at the beginning, middle or end.
- Use more than one hashtag if it applies to more than one topic, but choose wisely. Three is plenty!
- Don’t hashtag spam – if your tweet doesn’t add to that hashtag’s topic, discussion, or user base, don’t add the hashtag.