To Hash or Not to Hash? A Decision Making Guide

Using a decision-making flowchart, this post helps people determine whether they should include one or more hashtags in their tweets. This guidance is offered as an extension of the recent post, 6 Tips to Avoid Making a Hash of Twitter Hashtags. The post also provides links to additional resources that enable both rookie and more experienced Twitter users to maximize their tweeting effectiveness, as well as a LI poll designed to determine the optimum number of tweets per day.

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Earlier this month I wrote 6 Tips to Avoid Making a Hash of Twitter Hashtags. Like many of the pieces I’ve written about Twitter, it really seemed to strike a chord with people, as it was widely read and shared. After continuing to observe the misuse and abuse of hashtags, I decided it might be useful to create a flowchart that helps people decide when and how to include one or more hashtags in their tweets.

This flowchart should be viewed as an extension of the previous Twitter hashtag post, and I recommend you (re)read that first to help put these recommendations in context. The fundamental point of the flowchart is to help people avoid adding unnecessary, gratuitous, and potentially spammy #s to their tweets. They’re less critical than many people assume, and using them inappropriately can actually detract from a tweet rather than enhance it. Plus, with only 140 characters to work with, precious space shouldn’t be squandered. A good rule to follow is

When in doubt, leave it out!

As always, I welcome your comments, questions and other feedback. You can find a downloadable/printable pdf version of the flowchart on SlideShare.

- Courtney Shelton Hunt

PS – Be sure to scroll down to access related Twitter resources. I’m also running a poll on LinkedIn to determine the optimal number of targeted tweets per day. I hope you’ll vote, comment and/or share the poll to maximize our response rate. Thanks!

 

 

Finding the Tweets Per Day Sweet Spot

Do you use Twitter for professional purposes? Do you follow organizations that use Twitter as a news feed? If so, please participate in a LinkedIn poll focused on determining the optimal number of targeted tweets per day. The poll will be open until July 24, 2012, and the results will be beneficial to anyone who tweets on behalf of an organization. We'd love to get 500+ responses, which is absolutely possible with your votes and sharing help. Thanks in advance!

You can respond via the embedded poll below or directly on LI. We’ve collected over 150 votes already, and the results so far are enlightening and maybe even a bit surprising. I’m also getting some interesting comments on the various LI groups and other digital communities in which I’ve shared the question/poll. 

Click here if you’d like to learn more about this poll, its origins, and what we intend to do with the results.

 

Related Resources

Twitter for Rookies: Simple Guidance for Getting Started

Writing an EffectiveTweet

15 Twitter “Worst Practices” for Rookies (and Others) to Avoid

6 Tips to Avoid Making a Hash of Twitter Hashtags

Twitter Cross-Posting to LinkedIn: Stop the In-spam-ity!!! 

Top Twitter Abbreviations You Need to Know

Finding the Tweets Per Day Sweet Spot, Part I

Comments

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Many thanks to Social Media Today for posting this piece on their site, and for all the folks who have reshared it. Here's the SMT link:

http://socialmediatoday.com/courtney-hunt/567489/hash-or-not-hash-decision-making-guide

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Our Twitter guidance has been consolidated in this post:

http://www.sminorgs.net/2012/07/twitter-for-rookies-and-more-4-guides-and-more.html

We also recently ran a LI poll to determine the optimum number of "tweets per day." Here's a link to the blog post that shares the poll results and the themes that emerged from people’s comments - very fascinating and informative!

http://www.sminorgs.net/2012/08/the-tweets-per-day-sweet-spot-key-research-findings.html

[Courtney Shelton Hunt, PhD]

Here's an interesting piece about hashtags. Be sure to read the comments!

http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/03/hashtags-considered-harmful/