We now have almost 50 people following along in our summer Tweet-along. I hope you are learning something new.
This week we are learning about HASHTAGS. What are those #hashtags all about?
Here is a great website to learn more about hashtags and how to use them.
Hashtags are a way of indexing tweets so they are searchable. When writing a tweet 1-3 hashtags is usually a good number to use.
You can search a hashtag by clicking on it in a tweet, or by typing it into the search box in your twitter app.
For example, if you search for #bsd106 you will see all the tweets that teachers have created this year that might be of interest to the school community. Many teachers use their own classroom hashtag as well. Mrs. Barnett uses #1B106. Search that hashtag and you will find all of Mrs. Barnett's classroom tweets.
You can search our #106tweetalong hashtag to see who is tweeting.
Anyone can create a hashtag, but it is polite to search it first to make sure it's not in use by someone else if you plan to use it regularly for your own tweets.
Hashtags can also be used as a comment when saying something funny or clever, sort of an aside comment. For example @digiornopizza recently tweeted: pizza, wrestling, and pizza again #makesmehappy.
If you search #makesmehappy it is a collection of very random tweets about things that make people happy- it's not really a hashtag with a specific following. It is meant to be more of a comment.
On the other hand, #WorldCup2014 is a great way to follow posts from all over the world about the World Cup. You will see thousands of tweets with that hashtag. It's fun to follow one hashtag during an event to see what people are saying. That's the power of Twitter!
Your beginner task this week: explore hashtags. Go through your Twitter feed and click on a few hashtags to see what happens. Try the #bsd106 hashtag to see what we have been up to at school this year.
Your advanced task this week: Save a search for your favorite hashtags so you can quickly return to the search and view the discussion.
Power user task this week: Hashtags are used in real time for a group of people to "chat" about a topic. If you haven't already tried it, find a "chat" and follow the hashtags to see what is happening in the discussion. You can Google Twitter Chats and a topic you are interested in, i.e. running, politics, education, technology, and so on.Try using the Tweetchat.com web site to quickly and easily follow and participate in a chat.
Use those hashtags!
#106tweetalong
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