Tweeting My Way Back to You–Take 4

If you are looking to read about topics being covered across networks on Twitter, you need only look to the left hand side of you homepage where you can view suggestions on “Who to follow” and “Trends.”  You have the option to “change” trend options to either worldwide or local, i.e. popular cities.  As you can see below, Twitter is recommending I follow a coupon site, goodreads, and a homeschooler.  As a cheap, um, I mean frugal new mom, avid reader, and aspiring homeschooler these choices seem very appropriate – go Twitter!  The “United States Trends” topics are slightly less on target for me, so I may choose to limit the posts to a specific city.  I’m not really into wrestlemania, but nerdland sounds interesting…..lol

Now, about those hastags! 

Hashtags are simply user-created keywords that are meant to raise awareness and visibility of your tweets!

For example, I’m part of a review crew for homeschooling resources called Homeschool Mosaics.  Each time we share a review on Twitter we try to incorporate the use of the hashtag #MosaicReviews at the end of the Tweet.

Hashtags provide a way for potential followers and readers to find you. Hashtags should be simple and easy to remember keywords.  Keep in mind you have a 140 character limit for any tweets, so keep those hashtags short!

If you are interested in finding out about a certain topic, you can simply utilize the “Search” field on Twitter.  See below for a search I performed to look for any Tweeters conducting reviews with the hashtag #MosaicReviews.  You may also choose to limit the results to only people you follow.  As you can see, the Mosaic Reviews Team has been busy with reviews about Home School Grades, Apologia Planners, and We Choose Virtues.  Please note that if you were to do the same search using #mosaicreviews you would get the same search results, but using either #Mosaic Reviews (note space between the words) or #Mosaic_Reviews will not offer the same results.  Spaces and underlines will change the search parameters for Twitter!

Hashtags are a wonderful way to create and interact with your community on Twitter.  When participating in a campaign, movement, or “Twitter Party” the utilization of hashtags makes it possible for you and others to find each other’s related Tweets.  If you have a blog, are part of a review team, or want to make sure that a specific population is able to quickly find related Tweets, hashtags are the way to go.  Using the same key word in your blog, especially for series, giveaways, and reviews can help other users locate your Tweets and those of others about the same content, service, or product.  Since this is such a key feature of Twitter, it is important to repeat the keyword every time you share something related to that topic!  The hardest part of this whole process?  Remembering to include the hashtag at the end of your Tweet! 

As a reminder, we are learning together – I am a self taught Tweeter!  Reference for most of the information contained in this post can be found in “Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in 10 Minutes,” by Tee Morris. This is an Amazon affiliate link!