I came across the term hashtag during a Twitter conversation today but am not sure what it is. Can you explain to me what a Twitter hashtag is and how I can use it to help drive traffic to my website?
Hi,
A hashtag with regards to Twitter is a short set of characters following the hash symbol "#" created by users to categorize discussions. Hashtags can be placed in any part of your Twitter post.
Here is an example: #hashtag
That would presumably be a discussion related to hashtags or
#CSSHowTos
That would presumably be a discussion related to CSS How Tos.
Hashtags can typically mean anything as they are user-created so a hashtag looking like a bunch of random characters could have some specific meaning to the user who created it. Other users wishing to participate in that discussion can add the hashtag in their tweets and users seeing any of those tweets will be able to click on the hashtag and follow the tweets/discussions on the topic. Think of hashtags as being similar to tags used in say WordPress and that may make the concept seem a bit clearer.
To use hashtags on Twitter to help grow your traffic you can add them to your tweets to highlight what the tweet is about or related to. People interested in that topic may click on another tweet that has the same hashtag and be shown all the tweets that also contain that hashtag including yours. It is also another way to be discovered in Twitter's search.
There are sites available on the web solely to identify the meanings of hashtags used on Twitter as their meanings may not always be easily identifiable. An example of one of these websites is http://wthashtag.com.
An example of hashtags in action can be seen on the DeveloperTutorials.com Twitter page at http://twitter.com/DevTut
